XPeng Launches Robotaxi Line in Guangzhou, Three Years Behind But Ahead of Competitors
May 18, 2026 – 1:11 pm
The first car off the line on Monday marks the start of a slow ramp. Public pilots arrive in the second half, with fully driverless operations by early 2027.
XPeng claimed the title of the first automaker in China to begin mass production of a robotaxi developed entirely with in-house technology. Their vehicle, built on the XPeng’s new GX platform, is designed to support Level 4 autonomous driving from factory floor, not through aftermarket retrofits.
While Baidu’s Apollo Go, Pony.ai, WeRide, and other companies operate robotaxis across several cities in China, XPeng distinguishes itself as the first traditional automaker to put a robotaxi-grade vehicle into series production in the country. This is significant as previous operators have retrofitted consumer vehicles with AV technology.
XPeng’s robotaxi is designed from the ground up with the compute power, drive-by-wire chassis, and redundancy needed for Level 4 operation. It incorporates four of XPeng’s Turing AI chips delivering 3,000 TOPS of compute, Bosch steer-by-wire system, and aviation-grade redundancy across safety-critical systems.
Brian Gu, XPeng’s president, predicts production of hundreds to thousands of robotaxis over the next 12 to 18 months, with pilot operations beginning this year and fully autonomous service targeted for early 2027.
The Guangzhou plant holds an intelligent-connected-vehicle road-testing license, already conducting L4 road tests on public roads. XPeng’s aggressive diversification plan includes humanoid robots and modular flying cars, leveraging the same Turing silicon and vision-language-action software stack.