Xpeng sets August goal to overtake Tesla

Xpeng chief executive He Xiaopeng said Friday that the Chinese carmaker wants to beat Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system in China by August. (scmp.com) He made the pledge at a media briefing during Auto China 2026 in Beijing, where Xpeng was showing its VLA 2.0 driving system and new models including the GX and next P7. (scmp.com) (prnewswire.com) He said Xpeng’s software already outperforms Tesla in some difficult road situations, and argued that success on China’s denser, messier streets would show stronger overall capability. (scmp.com) “Self-driving” here still means driver assistance, not a car that can legally run alone everywhere. Xpeng says VLA 2.0 is meant to move its cars from Level 2 assistance toward Level 4 autonomy, skipping Level 3 as an intermediate step. (scmp.com) Xpeng rolled out VLA 2.0 in March 2026 and says the new system is built on vision, language and action models that speed up software training and updates. He said in March that progress made in four weeks now equals about a year of work under the old approach. (cnevpost.com) The company says nearly 100,000 consumers have tried in-store VLA 2.0 demonstrations, with a 98% satisfaction rate. Xpeng also said orders for its Ultra series rose 118% month over month after the system’s launch. (prnewswire.com) Tesla remains the benchmark Xpeng is chasing, but Tesla’s full Full Self-Driving package still has not won broad approval in China. A report this week said Tesla now expects wider approval there in the third quarter, later than Elon Musk’s earlier February target. (scmp.com) (finance.yahoo.com) That timing matters because Chinese carmakers are no longer competing only on sticker price or battery range. Xpeng plans to spend nearly $2 billion on research and development this year, while Geely used the same Beijing show to unveil its Eva Cab robotaxi with mass production planned for next year. (scmp.com) The backdrop is a softer market. China’s domestic electric-vehicle sales fell 23.8% year over year to about 2 million units in the first quarter after a purchase-tax exemption was cut in half, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers as cited by SCMP. (scmp.com) So Xpeng’s August target is not just a swipe at Tesla. It is a deadline for proving that software, not just hardware volume, can sell cars in China’s next phase of the electric-vehicle race. (scmp.com)