This is a time when all mankind stands at a crossroads together.
Globalization and the great changes in the world pattern, and the great changes in the form of civilization and production and lifestyle brought about by the development goals of carbon peak and carbon neutrality...... Among them, the rapid leap of AI technology and the transformation of the automotive industry are the most critical.
Now, the two key battles that affect the tide of the war are gradually coming to a convergence.
[Xpeng Motors was invited to the China AI Festival to challenge the first Guinness World Record]
Recently, China Media Group and the Office of the Central Cyber Security and Information Commission jointly held the first national science and technology feast with artificial intelligence as the core - the "2024 China AI Festival" (hereinafter referred to as the "Festival").
The ceremony aims to help the AI industry achieve innovation and upgrading and promote the vigorous development of new quality productivity represented by AI by vividly presenting the latest practices, fruitful achievements and broad prospects in the field of artificial intelligence in mainland China.
As the only invited company in the automotive industry, Xpeng Motors will demonstrate the latest combination of AI technology and the automotive industry from the perspectives of intelligent driving lane change, end-to-end intelligent driving in complex road sections, and unmanned automatic parking, and launch an impact on the "Guinness World Record for AI Intelligent Driving".
"If the last 10 years are the 10 years of new energy, the new 10 years will be the 10 years of smart cars. Combined with our own progress, I think that the large model will accelerate the landing speed of unmanned driving for at least three years, and fully autonomous driving is also one of the best business scenarios for the implementation of large models. He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xpeng Motors, once summed up the relationship between AI and new energy vehicles.
As he said, with the empowerment of AI models, more solutions are emerging to the high-end intelligent driving problems of L3 and above, which have been a headache for global car companies, and the relationship between the leading companies in this field between China and the United States is also getting closer and closer.
On June 20, He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xpeng Motors, personally experienced Tesla's FSD 12.3.6 autonomous driving system during his visit to the United States. At the same time, Tesla CEO Elon Musk interacted with the official account of Xpeng Motors under the tweet and praised "Chinese automakers for showing strong competitiveness on a global scale." ”
In fact, as the leading enterprises in the field of intelligent driving in the two countries, Xpeng Motors and Tesla have become the vanguard of global car companies to attack the problem of high-end intelligent driving.
Whether it is from the beginning of its establishment to firmly adhere to the intelligent route of new energy vehicles, or all the way to the cost of investment and research and development, throughout the development of the two companies, in focus on intelligent development, it is really a bit heroic and heroic.
Because this road is far more difficult than you think.
In 2016, Ford decided to skip Level 3 assisted driving and go directly to Level 4 autonomous driving. In 2022, Ford announced that it had failed.
At the end of 2023, Cruise, the star self-driving company owned by General Motors, was also hit hard. Cruise, a company that runs driverless taxis in cities such as San Francisco and Seattle, has run alongside Google's Waymo, but its business was eventually terminated due to a number of accidents.
There are countless similar cases, and the giants that dominate in the era of fuel vehicles have fallen into the process of new energy intelligence with intelligent driving as the core.
It can be said that a basic consensus has been formed inside and outside the industry - the most difficult transition from fuel vehicles to new energy vehicles is not "electrification" at all, but "intelligence".
The importance of intelligent capabilities based on intelligent driving even faintly jumps to the electrification capabilities with three-electric technology as the core.
New energy vehicle companies, from a long-term perspective, the final battle must be a big competition of intelligent capabilities.
And this day is approaching visibly with the naked eye.
[AI is fully on the car, Xpeng intelligent driving creates differentiated advantages]
Looking at today's new energy vehicle brand pattern, Xiaopeng Motors, which is steadily developing, is building its own differentiated advantages step by step, and rolling the snowball bigger and bigger on the "long slope".
More than a month ago, the high-profile Xpeng Motors "AI Day" was successfully held in Beijing.
After the release of the AI Dimensity system, which will be rolled out to all users, Xpeng Motors announced the mass production of an end-to-end large model composed of neural network XNet + regulatory large model XPlanner + large language model XBrain.
Different from the past, the end-to-end large model allows new energy vehicles to begin to imitate or learn the thinking and decision-making logic of humans through data-driven R&D iteration, and finally in a large amount of data feeding and repeated optimization training, the large model and neural network can continuously learn and evolve according to the original data to achieve higher efficiency and smarter decision-making, so as to make the intelligent driving experience more "anthropomorphic", and even eventually surpass humans, and achieve the ultimate goal of "active learning and continuous evolution".
Specifically, the end-to-end large model composed of neural network XNet + regulatory large model XPlanner + large language model XBrain is the "eye + cerebellum + brain" in this process.
Among them, the neural network XNet is mainly responsible for high-precision perception, ensuring that the perceived external conditions can be smoothly transmitted to the large language model XBrain, which focuses on "cognition", in any driving situation.
Tidal lanes, special lanes, identification of waiting areas, road sign text, fast, slow and urgent behavior instructions... Under the processing of the "brain", the intelligent driving system then makes anthropomorphic driving decisions that take into account safety and performance, and transmits these instructions to the "cerebellum" to collect data while executing the decision, and conduct immediate feedback training.
The gradual improvement of the intelligent driving experience has allowed more users to experience the thrill of technology-enabled life.
This is a long marathon and a great battle for new energy vehicle companies.
According to official information, Xpeng Motors is expected to invest 3.5 billion yuan in intelligent research and development in 2024, recruit 4,000 new professionals, and invest more than 700 million yuan per year in computing power training in the future, and announced that it will achieve L4 level assisted driving in China in 2025.
Looking back on the "first half" of the development of China's new energy vehicle industry, Xpeng Motors, which has been firm in its goal from the beginning and has continued to invest in intelligent research and development, is ushering in one moment after another of "technology realization".
[AI will be the key for Chinese cars to the world]
According to the data, in 2023, the global new energy vehicles (passenger vehicles) will increase by 35% year-on-year, with sales reaching 13.7 million units, and the market share will jump from 4% in 2020 to 16%.
In the same year, China's new energy vehicle production and sales were 9.587 million and 9.495 million respectively, a year-on-year increase of 35.8% and 37.9% respectively.
At the same time as the rapid rise, Chinese automobiles are also rapidly ushering in wave after wave of resistance.
The European Union has raised tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles on the agenda, and the United States has put pressure on Chinese battery companies with the Inflation Reduction Act...... The trend of "de-globalization" based on trade protectionism is raging in the context of global trade.
In this context, the output of technology based on intelligence has gradually become an excellent solution to break the Chinese automobile going overseas.
On July 27, 2023, Volkswagen Group signed a share purchase agreement with Xpeng Motors. On February 29, 2024, Xpeng and Volkswagen once again signed a joint development agreement on platform and software strategic technologies. On April 17, Xpeng Motors and Volkswagen issued a joint statement that the two sides will sign the latest strategic cooperation framework agreement on electronic and electrical architecture technology...... In the past year, fuel vehicle giants led by Volkswagen of Germany have turned their targets to Xpeng Motors, which has also led to the rapid heated discussion of topics related to Xpeng Motors' "intelligent" capabilities, and more people have locked up this new energy car company that is still "accelerating".
Feiben's technology and continuous fermentation of brand reputation have further fed back at the market level.
According to the financial report of Xpeng Motors in the first quarter of 2024, the total revenue of Xpeng Motors in Q1 2024 will be 6.55 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 62.3%.
Among them, the sales revenue of automobiles was 5.54 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 57.8%, and other revenues, including intelligent driving and other services, climbed to 1 billion yuan, an increase of 93.1% year-on-year and 22.1% month-on-month.
It is not difficult to see that in addition to the growth of car sales, services such as intelligent driving are becoming the key points of Xpeng's future profit growth, which is almost the same as Tesla's layout.
This benign profit model not only allows users to experience rapid iteration of technology and services, but also improves the gross profit margin problem that many car companies avoid talking about.
In the first quarter of 2024, Xpeng's gross profit reached 844 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1,158.8%, achieving positive growth for two consecutive quarters. The 12.9% gross margin was also its highest quarter since the third quarter of 2022.
It is foreseeable that on the whole, as China's new energy vehicle competition gradually enters the second half, the advantages of "intelligent" label car companies led by Xiaopeng Motors are rapidly amplifying.
Under the new wave of AI transformation, Xpeng Motors may be ushering in its best time. Whether it is participating in the AI ceremony on behalf of China's new energy vehicle companies this time, or several interactions with Tesla, it is not difficult to see that the relatively low-key and open Xpeng Motors may be ushering in its best time.
Solid technological innovation and a humble and open attitude towards new technologies in the outside world have allowed Xpeng Motors to continue to evolve while occupying the first-mover advantage, and ranking firmly in the first echelon of global intelligent driving. And this advantage is bound to eventually be accompanied by the surge of AI waves, creating more possibilities in a higher dimension.
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