Chinese electric car company Xpeng announced on November 5, 2025 that it will release a new version of its driver assistance system.
CNBC | Evelyn Chen
GUANGZHOU, China — Chinese electric vehicle company Xpeng said Wednesday it will begin rolling out a new driver assistance system for navigating narrow roads by the first quarter of 2026.
Xpeng claimed that the new system allows the car to drive smoothly and autonomously on narrow roads, which is better for the European market and significantly reduces the need for human intervention. The Chinese company said German automaker Volkswagen will be its first customer as Xpeng opens its system to other automakers.
Speaking at the company’s “AI Day,” Xpeng CEO Xiaopeng He claimed that the new driver assistance system, which builds on Xpeng’s existing systems to help with parking, highway driving, and navigating city roads, requires less human intervention than Tesla’s Fully Self-Driving (FSD) system and can complete test routes minutes faster.
“I’m going to America next month to compare.” [Xpeng’s latest system] FSD again,” he said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.
The new model can also respond to hand gestures from traffic controllers and the red-to-green countdown of traffic lights, the company said.
Tesla has struggled to obtain approval from the Chinese government to deploy FSD in mainland China. Xpeng began releasing driver assistance technology in major Chinese cities in early 2023, and the system has quickly become a must-have feature for Chinese companies looking to survive in the competitive domestic market.
Just as Tesla expanded into robotaxis this year, Xpeng on Wednesday announced plans to launch three robotaxis models next year and begin testing in Guangzhou.
