Xpeng Beings to Roll Out EVs With Driver Assistance Software in China

Tesla’s autonomous driving system became the center of attraction and holds a great buzz in the market, yet not available in most countries.

After seeing the success of US rival Tesla, a China electric manufacturing company called Xpeng announced on Friday to update its advanced driver assistance software and plans to make it available to drivers across China users by 2024.

Xpeng electric vehicles have an Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS), similar to Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology that debuted four years ago but hasn’t been made available in China despite a lot of customer demand.

The company vice president Wu Xinzhou states that this software will be available to the drivers of G9 Max and P7i Max company cars to complete the majority of trips on urban streets without intervention in Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.

During the first six months of the year, the system will be updated to enable most vehicles to respond to traffic lights and avoid obstacles like construction zones, crosswalks, and bicyclists.

Further improvements will be made in the second half, enabling vehicles to overtake, change lanes, and automatically make left- or right-turns.

Also, the company is updating its driver assistance technology so that it won’t rely on maps as per Chinese regulatory restrictions. Xpeng is trying to improve its technology to attract more customers as the car sales dropped more than 40% to 11,228 in the first two months of the year.