Chinese EV maker XPENG (NYSE: XPEV) officially opened the closed beta of its Robotaxi platform on July 10, 2026, with chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng completing the first end-to-end ride through the company's own ride-hailing app in Guangzhou.
CEO becomes the first passenger
"Very happy to be the first user in our robotaxi closed beta," Mr. He said in a Weibo post, describing how he placed the order downstairs from the office, got in, took his seat and set off. It was the first time XPENG connected the full online-hailing to offline-riding chain in a real-world environment.
The programme was announced during XPENG's first company-wide Robotaxi business meeting, where He outlined the strategic importance of autonomous mobility for the company's decade-long shift "from smart electric vehicles to robotic vehicles."
Turing chips and pure-vision VLA 2.0
The vehicle is built on XPENG's flagship GX SUV and engineered to L4 standards. It carries four of the company's in-house Turing AI chips, delivering 3,000 TOPS of onboard compute — the highest of any mass-produced car globally, according to XPENG. The pure-vision stack forgoes LiDAR and HD maps entirely, relying on the second-generation Vision-Language-Action model VLA 2.0 — the same foundation model that powers XPENG's IRON humanoid robot.
Inside, the cabin offers privacy glass, zero-gravity seats and a rear entertainment screen with voice-controlled climate. "The second-generation VLA model's ability to generalise across different environments significantly reduces the cost and complexity of deployment," said Candice Yuan, head of XPENG Robotaxi.
Ecosystem rather than fleet operator
Rather than run ride-hailing fleets itself, XPENG will act as a technology provider — supplying software, hardware and AI capabilities to local partners. The company plans regular demonstration services in 2026 with Guangzhou as its model city, and is exploring Robotaxi partnerships across Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Mapping platform Amap has become the platform's first global ecosystem partner. Fully driverless daily operations without on-site safety operators are targeted for early 2027.
XPENG obtained its Guangzhou intelligent connected vehicle road-testing permit in January and joins a wave of Level 4 rollouts alongside players such as Aurora, Volvo and Stellantis. It also mirrors the same VLA-based approach XPENG is applying to its humanoid ambitions in physical AI.
Reporting based on coverage from CnEVPost, PR Newswire, and XPENG.