XPeng begins robotaxi production in Guangzhou

XPeng said on May 18 that its first mass-produced robotaxi had rolled off the production line in Guangzhou, giving the Chinese electric-vehicle maker a production milestone as it pushes toward pilot operations later this year. The company said the vehicle is built on its GX platform and engineered to Level 4 autonomous driving standards. XPeng described it as China’s first production-ready, pre-assembled robotaxi model developed entirely with in-house technologies. The company said pilot operations are planned for the second half of 2026 and that it is targeting fully autonomous daily operations without on-site safety officers by early 2027. ### What exactly did XPeng put into production in Guangzhou? The Guangzhou vehicle is an L4 robotaxi based on XPeng’s GX platform, according to the company’s May 18 statement. XPeng said the model was developed through a full-stack in-house approach covering software, chips and the vehicle itself. The company said that made it the first automaker in China to mass-produce a robotaxi through full-stack, in-house development. (xpeng.com) XPeng said the robotaxi is “production-ready” and “pre-assembled,” language that points to a vehicle intended for deployment rather than a one-off test car. The company also said it had secured a Guangzhou road-testing permit for intelligent connected vehicles in January, moving the program into routine L4 public-road testing before the production rollout. (xpeng.com) ### What is notable about the vehicle’s hardware and software stack? XPeng said the robotaxi uses four self-developed Turing AI chips that provide 3,000 TOPS of effective on-board computing power. The company said the vehicle does not use LiDAR or high-definition maps, relying instead on a pure-vision system. The company said decision-making is driven by its VLA 2.0 end-to-end large model. (xpeng.com) XPeng said that architecture removes the language-translation step found in traditional “Vision-Language-Action” systems and cuts response latency to under 80 milliseconds. In a separate March 2 announcement, XPeng said its robotaxi equipped with VLA 2.0 had already begun public-road testing and that trial operations were scheduled to start later this year in China. ### How does this fit into XPeng’s broader robotaxi plan? March was the month XPeng said it set up a dedicated robotaxi business unit to handle product definition, research-and-development testing and operations. The company said that unit was created to accelerate commercialization. XPeng also said it would open its robotaxi software development kit, with Amap as its first global ecosystem partner. (xpeng.com) That adds a named outside participant to a program that XPeng has otherwise emphasized as internally developed. ### When are passengers likely to see these vehicles in service? The second half of 2026 is the date XPeng gave for pilot robotaxi operations. (xpeng.com) The company said those pilots are meant to test technical viability, user acceptance and the business model. Early 2027 is the next deadline XPeng attached to the program. The company said that is when it aims to achieve fully autonomous daily operations without on-site safety officers. (xpeng.com) ### What does XPeng say comes after the Guangzhou rollout? March 2 is the date XPeng used to outline the next phase beyond China-only testing. The company said international road testing would begin soon and that global deliveries of its VLA 2.0 intelligent-driving system are planned for 2027, with Volkswagen as the first customer for that technology in China. (xpeng.com) For the robotaxi program itself, the next concrete step remains the H2 2026 pilot in Guangzhou. XPeng said those operations will be used to validate the technology, rider uptake and operating model before the company moves toward daily driverless service in early 2027. (xpeng.com 1) (xpeng.com 2)