A few days ago, I read an article called “The most practical major in Chinese universities, which allowed me to study”. It stated that the vast majority of Chinese college entrance exam champions choose finance and economics majors under the business management and economics categories. In contrast, when I was young, my ideal job in high school was probably only one: programmer.
For us tech geeks, 1024, which originally came from 2 to the power of 10 and later represented the multiplier relationship between different levels of computer storage units, is a magical number. But unexpectedly, now when I hear “1024”, I think of XPeng Motors and a black shirt.
Yesterday
When I was writing this article, XPeng had just announced that it had delivered 7512 P7 models in September, becoming the top-selling new energy vehicle that month.
Nowadays, no one can doubt that intelligent vehicles will continue to thrive, but if you don’t search for it personally, you may even forget how young XPeng is.
In 2019, XPeng held its first 1024 Technology Day, and compared to the current high level of attention in public opinion towards XPeng, the reports related to that event on the Internet were already rare.
At that event, XPeng was even trying to describe the bright future of intelligent vehicles to everyone and prove itself. XPeng released a report titled “Smart Vehicle in Figures – XPeng Motors’ Intelligent Operational Report”, educating people on what intelligent vehicles are and what kind of people will buy them. In that PPT, XPeng presented its users’ car data in terms of intelligence for the first time.
At the time, XPeng, which could only offer G3 as a product, was promoting innovation in driver attention monitoring and multi-account login the most. It was trying to convince everyone that the car would get better through OTA updates in the future. I imagine back then, people must have been skeptical about the XPILOT3.0 system with high-speed autonomous driving and 360° perception system that could potentially appear on the yet-unreleased P7.I still remember that on the header image of XPeng’s official website at that time, the biggest picture was dedicated to the three letters “OTA”.
No one knew whether XPeng could survive one year later.
Today
The reason why I mentioned my college life at the beginning is that during my four years of undergraduate study, I devoted all my spare time and emotions to debate.
What I didn’t expect was that the only “serious” debate I had in the ten years after graduation was at XPeng’s Tech Day on October 24th.
On the day before the competition, because I found that ten years of time had brought an enlarged waistline, the organizer hastily bought me a black shirt, saying that it would make me look thinner.
But the most memorable thing besides that was the topic of the debate: for smart cars, which is more important, intelligence or cars?
Although my position at the time was “cars are more important”, I had no confidence on the stage. Just half a day ago, we had just experienced XPeng’s still-in-testing full-scene voice recognition, and saw the news that NGP was about to be launched. After experiencing it, I had this feeling for the first time: in the past, most of the concepts and product functions of intelligent cars were made by overseas brands, while domestic brands imitated, but this time, a Chinese trend of core technical capabilities in software functions finally emerged.
The result of that debate was not important anymore. What was important was that smart cars not only persistently survived in the market, but also stood firm.
On 1024 Tech Day in 2020, less than a year later, at least three trends have gained industry recognition:
- Intelligence has become a car company label that can be reflected in sales volume;
- In the fields of smart cabins and smart driving, Chinese brands have developed local or even global leading functional experiences;
- The process of technology from concept to implementation exhibited by car companies has become more pragmatic, and the speed has become faster.
The XPeng P7 we purchased also experienced a quiet growth, from not even having ACC at the time of delivery, to now driving around the world with NGP, from only being able to control single-sentence voice commands, to now being able to use human-like voice to connect dialogues.“`markdown
Tomorrow
Intelligence is becoming a label of XPeng brand, and XPeng brand has also found a unique and important territory in the fierce competition of electrification.
Until today, the functions displayed at the 1024 Technology Day last year are still many functional points that many competitors are currently focusing on upgrading.
This week, I suddenly received an invitation to the 1024 Technology Day this year.
Interpreting the invitation is a fun part of the intelligent automobile era that everyone loves.
The most important thing is the car in the middle, which is obviously not the “medium-to-large SUV” that we are familiar with XPeng’s imminent release. We all know that XPeng is unlikely to suddenly bring out a two-door coupe sports car, but who knows.
Therefore, I prefer to understand this city street view as a harbinger of the NGP to be released by XPeng in the city in the coming year. In the cycle of the next year, we may gradually adapt to point-to-point commuting dominated by our own cars in urban areas.
More prominently, there are many XPeng’s super charging piles along the main road, reminding us that the competition of intelligent electric vehicles has become a competition of systems. Infrastructure construction is important, but intelligence and R&D capabilities have become the key.
However, not all physical super charging piles exist in the form of light language, and they may be hinting at the more dimensional and virtual connections between vehicles and the surrounding world, such as intelligent cabins connecting to AIoT?
Of course, the flying car in the sky that doesn’t play by the rules is the Huitian flying car. From appearing as “non-staff personnel” at the Beijing Auto Show last year to occupying the C position in XPeng’s future innovation plan, how the flying car will land and become a new topic in the entire travel industry remains to be seen.
By the way, there is also Pengxing machine horse that recently showed its face in a silly form. Boldly think about it, will He XPeng ride a bicycle to the stage this time?
We used to describe imagination with the phrase “flying high like a heavenly horse”, then I found that three out of four characters in XPeng’s name are “peng”…
But it’s not important. What’s important is that we gradually have a sense of security about imagination, and we know that many innovations will accelerate and come, and when they come, they will benefit as many users as possible.
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However, I am not sure what color shirt I will buy, just like I don’t know where the boundary of technology day will be this time.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.