XPeng Aggressively Pushes L4 Autonomous Driving, Huawei Remains Cautious

[Technical Approach] XPeng announced it will skip L3 and mass-produce L4 autonomous driving within the year, while Huawei emphasizes that L3 is an indispensable step.

Key Development: XPeng Motors aggressively advances L4 deployment

On April 8, He Xiaopeng announced that by leveraging urban NOA, end-to-end large models, and a high-compute redundant perception system, XPeng will achieve mass production of L4 autonomous driving for consumer vehicles within the year, covering both private passenger cars and Robotaxi applications. He also called for clear regulatory policies defining automakers’ primary responsibilities.

Strategic Foundation: Huawei insists L3 is a necessary phase

Huawei Senior Vice President Jin Yuzhi stated that L4 must significantly exceed human driving safety standards and that responsibility allocation and validation must be built upon experience gained through L3. He added that L4 is currently better suited for commercial deployment in closed environments such as ports and heavy-duty trucks, while L4 for passenger vehicles still requires concurrent maturity in both regulation and technology.