Author: Tian Hui

XPeng’s Dream, Not Just About Cars.

On October 24th, XPeng Automobile Technology Day, a technology show was held for a technology enterprise. After founder He XPeng’s simple greetings and modest sales boasting, he gave a speech on XPeng’s future plans with the theme of “prioritizing intelligence and exploring the boundless”. The core information includes:

Super Battery: 800V, SiC, 480kW Energy Storage Super Charging Station

Intelligent Driving: 2022 Urban NGP, XP4.0 Hardware Computing Power 508TOPS

Intelligent Robot: Machine Horse

Flying Car: Mass Production in 2024

In terms of intelligent car technology, the first to be implemented is the City Navigation Assistance (City NGP) function, which will be launched in some cities in 2022. The next vehicle will be equipped with the XPilot 4.0 hardware, using two Nvidia Orin-X computing chips with a computing power of 508TOPS.

In terms of electrification technology, XPeng Automobile plans to launch an 800V SiC high-voltage three-level platform and a 480kW energy storage supercharging station to match it.

Although the intelligent electric car plan is already eye-catching enough, XPeng’s ambitions obviously go beyond this. The intelligent machine horse and flying car launched at this technology day highlights XPeng’s scientific and technological value, which is different from traditional car brands.

Super Battery: 800V, SiC, 480kW

XPeng will be China’s first brand to launch a mass-produced 800V high-voltage SiC platform and 480kW super charging stations. He XPeng said in his speech at the Technology Day.

Although the associated adjective phrase is long, the focus is on mass production.

Currently, the only mass-produced 800V SiC high-voltage platform vehicle model is the Porsche Taycan, but the Taycan’s charging power is only 350kW. Although many car manufacturers have planned 800V SiC high-voltage platforms, most of them have not yet achieved mass production.

In addition, although some car manufacturers have adopted high-voltage platform vehicles, they have not launched the 480kW super large power charging stations, nor have they launched 800V SiC high-voltage platforms for car manufacturers that have launched 480kW charging stations.

Therefore, becoming the first brand to simultaneously mass-produce an 800V SiC high-voltage platform and a 480kW super charging station is indeed possible for XPeng.

Since XPeng’s 800V platform is based on SiC carbon silicon materials, there will definitely be improvement in overall efficiency. The data disclosed by He XPeng is that the maximum charging current exceeds 600A, the electronic drive efficiency is up to 95%, and the system comprehensive efficiency is over 89%.Charging for 5 minutes, driving for 200 kilometers is no longer just a slogan, it will become a reality on the 800V SiC high-voltage platform and the 480kW supercharging station.

The 480kW supercharging station, which is matched with the 800V SiC high-voltage platform, will be put into mass production first, with a maximum charging current of more than 670A, using a liquid-cooled cable design, and IP67 protection capability, which makes it easy for female car owners to operate.

The impact of large power charging stations on the power grid cannot be ignored. Therefore, XPeng Motors’ 480kW supercharging station will use self-developed energy storage charging technology, making use of energy storage supercharging stations and mobile energy storage vehicles to relieve power grid pressure, and provide services for 30 cars at once.

It is worth noting that XPeng Motors is one of the few independent brands of self-built charging networks among the new forces of independent car manufacturers, with 439 branded supercharging stations and 1648 free charging stations currently. After the announcement of the 480kW supercharging station, XPeng’s energy supplement system will be further improved.

In hot spots in the city, the existing charging stations will continue to be arranged, while supercharging networks will be set up around highways, which can greatly alleviate the problem of charging anxiety for electric vehicle owners on long-distance trips, and thus improve brand loyalty.

With the increasing attention to high-power liquid-cooled cable supercharging stations in the industry, XPeng’s upgrading and rebuilding of the charging network on the basis of a large number of charging stations in the early stage is clearly easier than starting from scratch to build a new charging network.

After the establishment of the super energy supplement system based on the 800V high-voltage platform and the 480kW supercharging station, XPeng Motors will pull ahead of its competitors in terms of charging and energy supplement.

Launch of Robotaxi

XPeng’s intelligent driving assistance extends beyond products to travel services.

In the speech of Wu Xinzhou, the vice president of XPeng Motors’ autonomous driving business, he made a detailed plan for the future intelligent driving assistance system and summarized it in two sentences:

Human-machine co-driving of intelligent driving assistance will be the inevitable choice for a long time. The landing of intelligent driving assistance functionality in urban scenes marks the beginning of the second half of the opening of intelligent driving assistance.In the second half of intelligent assisted driving, XPeng Motors will launch three hardware platforms: XPilot3.5, 4.0, and 5.0.

The upcoming XPilot4.0 hardware platform will have a 508Tops computing power.

In terms of hardware, the NPU platform in XPilot 4.0 will use two NVIDIA Orin-X chips. In terms of perception ability, XPilot 4.0 uses an 8 million pixel frontal binocular camera and a 2.9 million pixel side camera. The domain controller will also be upgraded to a highly integrated and extensible autonomous driving domain controller, with communication speed upgraded to gigabit Ethernet.

After intelligent assisted driving capabilities are enhanced, XPeng Motors plans to gradually extend its intelligent assisted driving products to services.

In his speech, Wu Xinzhou did not explain in detail how XPeng Motors will transform from creating smart assisted driving products to creating services. However, in the post-conference group interview, XPeng Motors founder He XPeng confirmed that this service is similar to Robotaxi.

When answering questions, He XPeng said: “It is somewhat similar to the Robotaxi you mentioned earlier. Its core logic is that it can achieve such travel within a certain range of a city, but it has a safety officer. The biggest value is to accumulate data, especially all kinds of abnormal data, such as a roadblock in this section, which is a special kind of data. What to do if there is a heavy rain just happened, these are things that you usually won’t see. Only through such accumulation, running millions of kilometers for a long time, can we lay the foundation for the future larger scale, such as autonomous driving, even unmanned driving.”

According to XPeng Motors’ plan, autonomous driving travel services will begin to be provided in the second half of 2022.

XPeng is Serious about Technology

Machine horses and flying cars are the highlights of XPeng Motors’ technology beyond cars.

Machine horses will be developed by Pengxing Intelligent, an ecological enterprise of XPeng Motors.XPeng Motors believes that robots will be the iconic product that marks the beginning of the intelligent era. Unlike smart cars, robot horses skip the “assisted driving” phase and enter the “unmanned driving” phase directly, facing more open, three-dimensional, and finer-grained environments, which makes the development of robot horses more challenging.

Robot horses use a perception system composed of a 360-degree camera module and a laser radar, and use mobile soundfield modeling technology to achieve “freely cross-room soundfield positioning” and perform time and space-based target recognition.

At present, there are many companies that have launched four-legged bionic intelligent robots, but few of them have landed. If XPeng Intelligence can be the first to land, it will trigger a new competition.

Flying cars are also a product of XPeng Automotive’s ecological company, XPeng Huitian.

What was shown at XPeng Automotive’s Technology Day was not XPeng Huitian’s current product line, but the plan for the future sixth-generation flying car.

On the sixth-generation flying car, innovative designs of mechanical arms, folding propeller systems, and locking mechanisms will automatically switch between different application scenarios of land and flight. The body material is a carbon fiber monocoque body, which extensively uses aviation aluminum, magnesium alloys, and special glass, and uses high-energy density, high-discharge-rate power batteries, high-power-density electric drive, and integrates designs through mechanical structures to achieve weight reduction. Compared with XPeng P7, the weight reduction is close to 50%.

In terms of operation and interaction, the sixth-generation flying car will use a single-pole operation method that is decoupled from the steering wheel during flight, and use a steering wheel during land travel. The flight control system will assist the driver in executing driving intentions, reduce the impact of misoperation, and enable everyone to easily complete the flight. In terms of safety, the sixth-generation flying car will undergo a safety assessment before takeoff to unlock the flight function.

He XPeng stated in his speech that the sixth-generation flying car will be mass-produced in 2024.

Transformation or regression?

XPeng Automotive’s Technology Day has been held for three consecutive sessions, with each one being more exciting than the previous ones.

The super battery energy-replenishment plan and intelligent assisted driving plan released at this Technology Day conference are what every automotive company should do, while the subsequent robot horses and flying cars reflect XPeng Automotive’s new exploration in the field of technology.

This inevitably prompts thinking: Is XPeng really an automotive company?

Although many automotive companies are also researching flying cars, few are persistent in this pursuit, and car companies that launch four-legged bionic robots are even rarer. Therefore, one point of view is that XPeng Automotive is transforming into a technology company.

However, it should not be forgotten that XPeng Automotive’s birth is closely related to technology. Founder He XPeng is also a successful person in the Internet industry.Over the years, XPeng Motors has consistently made efforts in cutting-edge automobile technologies such as intelligent assisted driving. At the third XPeng Motors Technology Day, the company’s transformation into a technology company emerged again, possibly due to a misunderstanding.

XPeng Motors’ positioning may have been that of a technology company. The emergence of Super Charge Assistance, intelligent assisted driving, machine horse, and flying car represents this technology company’s plan for future technologies.

Therefore, it is not so much the case that the XPeng Motors Technology Day marks a transformation, as it is a blossoming of XPeng Motors.

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.