Xpeng's Autonomous P7 Vehicle Fleet Drives 3,600 Kms, Sets Record

Xpeng Inc XPEV announced Wednesday it had set a record for the longest autonomous drive in China.

What Happened: A Chinese electric and autonomous vehicle maker, XPeng completed its 3,000 km navigation-assisted autonomous driving expedition beginning in Guangzhou on March 19 and ending in Beijing March 26.

Operated by Xpeng’s navigation guided pilot (NGP) software, Xpeng’s P7 fleet completed over 3,600 kms of which 2,930 kms were under the control of the NGP and fully autonomous. Human driver intervention was required 0.71 times on average for every 100 kms of driving range.

Why It Matters: Rigorous testing of autonomous hardware and software is needed if these types of vehicles are going to make it into the mainstream. After a number of high-profile accidents involving autonomous vehicles, most recently when a police vehicle was struck by a Tesla Inc TSLA car operating on autopilot, the general public is not accepting of autonomous driving. A recent study conducted by AAA concluded 71% of people are afraid to drive in a fully autonomous vehicle.

What’s Next: XPeng’s expedition may be a good start to collecting the data that will soon make customers more at ease with the idea of autonomous driving. During the trip, the fleet’s ramp entering and exiting success rate was 92.76% and its average tunnel pass-through success rate was 94.95%. During the trip, the fleet also successfully drove in rainstorms, went through tunnels and drove on highways in mountain areas.

“The expedition has fully challenged the robustness and reliability of the NGP function. The results demonstrate that it is not only the strongest, but also the easiest to use autonomous driving function for production vehicles available in the market,” said He Xiaopeng, chairman and CEO of XPeng, at a press briefing in Beijing.

(Photo: XPeng)