He Xiaopeng: High-level autonomous driving will reach a turning point in the next 18 months.

Ten years ago, Xiaopeng Motors (09868), which has been betting on intelligence and technology, seems to have finally reached a tipping point in the new energy track after years of struggle, welcoming an explosive quantitative change. At the China Electric Vehicle Hundred-Person Forum on March 16, Xiaopeng Motors Chairman He Xiaopeng predicted that the tipping point for advanced intelligent driving may arrive in 18 months. This will be a huge breakthrough opportunity for Xiaopeng and other players in the field of intelligent driving. Looking back, He Xiaopeng sees a qualitative change happening in the Chinese automotive market. Over five years ago, there were over a hundred new forces, but now there are only two-digit numbers left, those with ideas and willingness to take action have already played their cards; the predicted penetration rate of new energy in the industry by 2025 has already exceeded 48% at the beginning of this year. With a trend of unstoppable transformation, He Xiaopeng believes that market-driven competition in the next three years is inevitable. In the field of new energy vehicles, Chinese brands now account for over 90%, a scene unimaginable in the era of fossil fuels, which also means that the competition will intensify. How to face this competition? He Xiaopeng believes that the most important thing is to learn from the industry leaders, establish system capabilities, organizational capabilities, and operational capabilities. However, he also pointed out, "The war cannot be won by following the old ways." He Xiaopeng firmly believes that the core tipping point of electric vehicles, like the iPhone 4, will come from intelligence rather than design or cost. Xiaopeng Motors believed in this from the first day of its establishment and has been consistently investing in autonomous driving. He Xiaopeng introduced that the NPG intelligent driving function launched by Xiaopeng three years ago has now become standard in almost all models above 200,000; the pictureless intelligent driving system launched a year and a half ago has already been deployed in 243 cities nationwide; the tipping point for advanced intelligent driving may arrive in 18 months. He believes that the greatest value of advanced intelligent driving is the significant reduction in accident rate. Currently, the accident rate of intelligent driving is less than 1/10 of manual driving, and in the future, with the improvement of intelligent driving capabilities, the era of unmanned driving with collaboration between cars, roads, and clouds will arrive. He Xiaopeng expects this number to drop to between 1% and 1, meaning that the number of deaths per year due to car accidents could drop from 2 million to less than 20,000. In He Xiaopeng's view, this is not a utopian fantasy, as the catalytic turn of technology breakthroughs and cost reduction are turning it into reality. In the next 18-36 months, Xiaopeng plans to reduce the take-over rate of urban intelligent driving from ten times per hundred kilometers to 0.1 times, approaching the current level of high-speed intelligent driving. This poses a significant challenge for the more complex urban traffic environment. However, the outbreak of AI has become the key catalyst for technological tipping points. He Xiaopeng revealed that Xiaopeng will achieve the industry's first large-scale model on-board in the second quarter, making the car smarter. On the other hand, He Xiaopeng stated that intelligent driving has gradually become one of the top three car purchase decisions for consumers. If costs can be further reduced, advanced intelligent driving and even unmanned driving will quickly dominate the market. Over the next three years, Xiaopeng will launch more than a dozen new models and several products aimed at the global market, significantly spreading costs and making cheaper autonomous driving a reality. He Xiaopeng's goal is to push intelligent driving functions into lower-priced markets and make a profit. At the forum, he "teased" that Xiaopeng Motors will launch a brand new brand in April, entering the 100,000-150,000 yuan A-class car market, targeting young people and creating AI intelligent driving cars for the global market. According to sources close to Xiaopeng, the new brand will release multiple new models with different levels of intelligent driving capabilities. The first SUV aims to compete with Tesla's upcoming MODEL Q. From He Xiaopeng's "trump card product" and his judgment of future trends, it can be seen that he is actively proving the immense potential of technology players and the deep moat surrounding them. He said that Xiaopeng will invest 3.5 billion yuan in R&D in intelligentization this year, combined with massive amounts of computing power, data, and other tasks, which is a burden that most start-up companies cannot bear. After ten years of accumulation, will the electric vehicle market open its arms to "Xiaopeng" to lead in the competition? According to He Xiaopeng, the answer will naturally surface in the next 18 months. This article is compiled from "Wall Street Seen", edited by GMTEight: Chen Xiaoyi.