At the IAA Mobility 2025 show in Munich, Candice Yuan, senior director and head of product at Xpeng's Autonomous Driving Center, told CarNewsChina that the company has grown increasingly confident in its vision-based approach since pulling lidar from its vehicles. "The lidar data can't contribute to the AI system," Yuan told the outlet, adding that the company's large language model is fed mainly 10 to 30-second short videos, taken from its customer vehicles, and then used to train the AI system.
Chinese electric car maker Xpeng has officially started manufacturing electric passenger vehicles in Europe, beating rival BYD to the punch, though not by much. Xpeng has partnered with Austrian contract manufacturer Magna Steyr to begin local production of the G6 and G9 electric crossovers, with the first units having already rolled off the production line. Magna is one of the biggest names in the automotive industry, with its manufacturing facility in Graz, Austria, being responsible for assembling the Mercedes-Benz G-Class and BMW Z4.