XPeng G9 , the first electric SUV to Pass Robotaxi Testing

The XPeng G9 electric SUV is the first unmodified mass-produced vehicle in China to be approved for autonomous driving testing on public roads.

The EV startup announced the successful acquisition of the Guangzhou Intelligent Connected Vehicle Road Test Permit, which allows it to conduct autonomous driving tests on designated public roads in Guangzhou using Xpeng G9 vehicles with no hardware upgrades.

A simple over-the-air (OTA) software update is all that is required to transform a standard XPeng G9 into a robotaxi test vehicle.

Apart from that, the XPeng G9 autonomous driving road test vehicles consist of the same hardware as commercially available G9s, including 31 sensors, a front-view camera, and dual LiDAR sensors.

These sensors could power XPeng's second generation "full-scenario" ADAS, dubbed XNGP (Navigational Guided Pilot) and available for $4,000 on the G9.

Vice President of the Autonomous Driving Center at XPeng, Dr. Xinzhou Wu has stated that securing the autonomous driving road testing permit for a commercial vehicle is a strong endorsement of their autonomous driving deep R&D and software capabilities.

More than that, their approach by using mass-produced commercial vehicles to explore mobility solutions will build a strong foundation to realize economies of scale.

Dual NVIDIA Drive Orin-X intelligent assisted driving chips and Gigabit Ethernet communication architecture manage sensor data. The G9's ADAS is said to make automated driving and parking easier than ever before, thanks to powerful sensing capabilities and up to 508 TOPS of computing power.

According to XPeng, XNGP will be available in most Chinese cities by 2023 and will be capable of handling multiple driving scenarios without relying solely on high-precision maps.

As it integrates its advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) with autonomous driving machine-learning-based training models to accelerate software iterations with closed-loop data feedback, the company expects to generate synergies by leveraging its platform-based technology stack.