He Xiaopeng talks about DeepSeek, declaring that AI is the real future of the electric vehicle industry

DeepSeek's amazing performance made the concept of AI a national topic for the first time, and it took only 7 days for the number of users to exceed 100 million. In comparison, it took ChatGPT a full 2 ​​months to achieve this goal.

In this regard, the industry believes that AI will be a main line of investment in the present and long-term future. There are abundant opportunities, and it will bring more surprises to various vertical industries in terms of application scenarios. For example, in the electric vehicle industry, AI seems to be born to be its perfect partner.

At the beginning of 2025, He Xiaopeng, chairman of Xpeng Motors, talked about the development ideas of AI on wheels in an internal opening letter.

He Xiaopeng believes that AI is bringing huge opportunities to all industries and will accelerate the promotion of high-level autonomous driving. The penetration rate of high-level intelligent driving in China exceeded 10% last year, and this year will be a new turning point for the autonomous driving industry. He also said that in the second half of this year, Xiaopeng will be the first to achieve L3 level full-scenario autonomous driving, driving AI cars into the "iPhone 4 era."

As we all know, Steve Jobs' iPhone 4 was a product watershed that truly changed the mobile phone industry at various levels.

When it comes to the development of AI-driven cars, Xpeng Motors is not just following the trend.

As early as the tenth anniversary of Xpeng Motors, He Xiaopeng said: "In the next decade, Xpeng Motors will be an explorer of future travel and become a global AI car company."

In fact, when it comes to the development of AI, He Xiaopeng is not only a prophet, but also a visionary and doer.

In 2020, Xiaopeng built its own chip team, and its self-developed Turing chip was successfully taped out, becoming the world's first AI chip that can be used simultaneously in AI cars, AI robots and flying cars.

In May 2024, Xiaopeng's end-to-end large model was put into mass production, making it one of only two car companies in the world at that time to achieve the end-to-end large model.

At the end of July, the AI ​​Dimensity system XOS 5.2.0 version was fully pushed, and XNGP was officially upgraded from "can be opened nationwide" to "easy to use nationwide".

It seems that Xiaopeng Motors is not just talking big when it says it will use AI to "take the lead in achieving L3 full-scenario autonomous driving." More importantly, He Xiaopeng's goal does not stop there.

When asked by the media about his vision for Xpeng in the next decade, He Xiaopeng said bluntly: "In the next decade, I want to make AI cars well."

He believes that in the future, cars in cities should be driverless, cars between cities should fly at low altitudes, and short-distance transportation and service tools should be robots. These three visions may take more than a decade to realize, but may be achievable in the next decade.

In addition, He Xiaopeng also said: "We hope that more users can enjoy the tremendous changes that technological progress has brought to everyone. This is also our mission."

He Xiaopeng's mission is to pave the way for the popularization of advanced intelligent driving technology. Judging from some of the new cars released by Xiaopeng Motors in the past, this is entirely possible.

For example, the Xiaopeng G6 is the only pure electric model in the 200,000-class vehicle class equipped with a full-range 800V high-voltage SiC silicon carbide platform, a full-scene smart cockpit, and urban intelligent driving. After one month on the market, the number of orders has exceeded 40,000, of which the "Max version" with laser radar accounts for 70%.

The price range of MONA M03 models equipped with a pure visual driving assistance system has also dropped to 119,800 yuan to 155,800 yuan, which actually indicates that high-end intelligent driving has officially entered the 200,000-level market.

From He Xiaopeng's attitude, it is clear that this may not be the "end" of Xiaopeng Motors' popularization of high-level intelligent driving. In his opening letter, He Xiaopeng mentioned the recent shock in the AI ​​industry. He said that the Chinese technology company DeepSeek shocked the global technology circle, not only achieving a product experience comparable to OpenAI's large model, but also reducing costs to an extremely low level.

What this means is that if DeepSeek further reduces the cost of AI-driven automobile development, Xpeng Motors may be able to allow more users to enjoy the "benefits" of advanced intelligent driving.

So, will Xiaopeng Motors, which has a positive attitude and practical actions, take off because of the AI ​​trend? From the perspective of the entire industry, it is not easy to stand out and soar into the sky. The reason is that there are too many early birds in China.

In addition to Xiaopeng, there are many car companies that are paying attention to the AI ​​trend. Among them are rising stars such as Xiaomi, new forces of the same period such as Ideal, and industry leaders such as Geely and Tesla. For example, Geely released the "intelligent car full-domain AI" technology system at CES this year.

At the end of last year, Li Xiang also talked about AI technology. He believes that cars will evolve from transportation tools in the industrial age to space robots in the era of artificial intelligence. He said that Ideal Auto is not making cars smart, but making artificial intelligence cars.

From this perspective, even though Xiaopeng Motors is quite confident in AI-driven intelligent driving advancement, it is still hard to say whether Xiaopeng Motors can gain the upper hand in AI technology as mainstream automakers are paying attention to the development trend of AI.

Judging from Xpeng Motors' sales performance in 2024, its deliveries in 2024 were 190,100 vehicles. Although the target of 280,000 vehicles set at the beginning of the year was lowered to 200,000 vehicles, it still failed to achieve the target as scheduled.

In other words, even though there has been certain progress in AI technology, Xiaopeng Motors still has a lot of room for improvement in its comprehensive strength in other dimensions.

At present, AI technology is becoming an important anchor for car companies to improve their competitiveness. There is nothing wrong with various car companies, including Xiaopeng Motors, "betting" on this aspect. However, in addition to the breakthrough of AI technology, car companies still need to seek development from multiple dimensions such as intelligence, interior and exterior design, electrical battery performance, personalization, user needs and market preferences, and service network.

After all, whether users are willing to "buy it" or not, it is obviously not enough to just show off AI technology. What matters in the end is the comprehensive strength of the vehicle.