Tesla’s Robotaxi Breakthrough? Xpeng CEO Says It’s Almost Level 4!
Exactly one year after visiting California, Silicon Valley and Tesla, the CEO of Xping, Hisha Pang has returned. Hisha Pang is not a casual observer. He’s the founder, chairman, and CEO of Xpank, the Chinese EV company most similar to Tesla. They do their own software, which the Volkswagen group are now using, and their platforms, which the Volkswagen group are now using as well. They build their own autonomous driving system. They’ve been pushing robo taxi development for many years. Hello my friends, welcome to the channel. I’m Sam Evans. You’re watching the Electric Viking. Great to have you with us. Back in June of last year, Hisha Punk traveled to California to test Tesla’s full self-driving version 12.3.6. It’s come a long way since then. However, he praised it at the time, saying it was smooth, predictable, and impressive on highways. Now, this was in spite of the fact that he test drove a car with hardware 3, not the new hardware 4. He also said though that Whimo was better in dense urban areas like San Francisco. Fast forward to last week and he’s back this time to test full self-driving version 14.2. 2 and Tesla’s latest robo taxi prototype using the exact same software model. After more than 5 hours testing across Silicon Valley and San Francisco, he said something kind of shocking. Full self-driving has jumped from a smooth level two system to nearly level four performance. That is one of the strongest compliments Tesla has ever received from anyone in the world, let alone from a direct competitor. Now, if you’re one of those people who thinks you know everything, there’s a few fear of you on social media saying Tesla’s never going to sell full self-driving, well, I’d say that the CEO of Xpang strongly disagrees with you. According to his post on Waybo, he drove a normal Tesla vehicle running full self-driving version 14.2. I’m not sure if it was a Model 3 or a Model Y, but it was one of them. He rode in a Tesla robo taxi running the same system. Both vehicles performed well, consistently, he said. The ride was reassuringly smooth, and the software’s capabilities significantly surpassed last year’s. He admitted it wasn’t perfect. No system is well at least not many are. But the jump in capability was so big that he now believes Tesla’s approach is correct. And that kind of justifies the decision he made for Xpang to go vision only and to remove LAR from their cars. One unified autonomous driving system across both private vehicles and robo taxis is the key here. This is exactly what Tesla has been saying for years. Same hardware, same software, same neural net. Whether you buy the car or you hail it as a robo taxi, same thing for customers. Same thing for customers who want to sit in a car or want to buy a car. Now, the CEO of one of ch of one of the world’s and China’s smartest EV companies is saying, “Yes, that is the right strategy.” Now, Hea Pang went even further. He said this, “Everyone can skip the level three smart driving stage and directly enjoy a vehicle with a level four capabilities.” He was referring to Tesla here. I’ve got a lot of respect for CEOs who can praise their competition. A lot of CEOs don’t do this. They kind of um you know, they’re more likely to disparage their rivals than actually say anything positive about them. Now, this is quite a statement, right? More automakers today talk endlessly about level three, the idea that you can take your hands off in certain scenarios, but the system may still need driver takeover. He’s saying, “Forget that. Forget that. If Tesla and eventually Xiaopang can deliver near level four performance or level four performance, the industry can bypass level three entirely.” This is exactly what Elon Musk had been predicting, or at least he has been anyway, that true autonomy will not come from adding more sensors or new maps or extra lidars, but from scaling neural nets and massive training data. Kind of like um driving yourself. Imagine you as a person driving millions of miles on the road. Eventually, after the, you know, you’ve done your first million, you’re pretty good. Second million, you’re even better. And by the time you’ve done 10 million miles, you’ve seen pretty much everything. Now, here we have Xpang, one of the most advanced ADS developers in China, acknowledging Tesla’s advantage. So, you know, credit to them for doing that and saying that. I I I really think this a good reason to fully respect what Xpang are doing and saying. Now, Xpang though are not just watching Tesla. They’re building their own robo taxi fleet. I’ve driven their cars using their NGP, which is their version of full self-driving, and it’s getting better. At their 2025 AI day last month that I attended, Xping announced the following. Three robo taxi models launching in 2026, trial operations beginning shortly after, and a brand new VA 2.0 autonomous driving software coming next quarter. H Sha Pang says VA 2.0 will not match Tesla’s full self-driving 14.2. That’s how far ahead he believes Tesla currently is, but Xping is confident they can close the gap eventually. Which brings us to well, this might be the best part of the entire story. H Sha Pong made a bet with his own own autonomy team. And here’s the deal. Here’s what the bet is about. If Xpang’s VA software can reach the same performance in China as Tesla’s full self-driving version 14.2 achieves in Silicon Valley by the 30th of August 2026. So if they can achieve this by the 30th of August next year, he will reward the their Silicon Valley engineers with a Chinese style cafeteria on campus. But if they fail, the head of Xpang’s autonomous driving team, Lu Shang Ming, has promised to run naked across the Golden Gate Bridge. Yeah, you might not want to be around at that time. If that happens, yeah, you heard that correctly. This is now officially the most entertaining bet in the history of of autonomous driving. Now, Lou recently took over Xpang’s entire AD team in October, and he’s an AI specialist. He seems confident, at least brave anyway, brave enough to make that kind of pledge. What about Whimo versus Tesla versus Xpank? Well, Hisha Pang also gave an interesting comparison. Last year, Whimo was still better than Tesla in density driving was what he said. Tesla was better on highways and in Silicon Valley, but now Tesla’s version 14.2 has improved dramatically. This suggests Tesla is closing the urban performance gap at a rapid pace to Whimo. And because Tesla trains full self-driving on real world human driving data, not maps or rules-based logic, the system improves everywhere, not just in specific test zones. Xpang, meanwhile, combines vision-based approaches with high precision mapping in some areas. They are seen as one of the few Chinese companies capable of competing with Tesla on intelligence rather than just on hardware. But even Xpang is now acknowledging that Tesla’s pace of improvement is exceptional. And credit to them for saying that. So what does this mean for the entire industry? Well, when your competitor CEO says your autonomy system is significantly better than last year, nearly level four, correct in its architecture, and worthy of skipping level three entirely, that means something pretty big. Let’s be honest. Let’s be real here. Most automakers are years behind Tesla and Xpang in software maturity. That’s the reason why the Volkswagen Group wants to use Xpang software and their hardware. Many of them still rely on mobile eye. Others have given up on autonomy altogether. Ford and the Volkswagen group have just given up on it. But this story tells us a few things. In fact, it tells us three things. Number one, Tesla’s autonomy advantage is real and it’s growing fast. Full self-driving version 14.2 is impressing even rival leaders. Two, Xping is one of the only car makers pushing hard enough to stay in the race and they are honest enough to praise Tesla publicly. That’s the key point here. Xping are honest unlike some of their rivals. Point three, the future of robo taxis will be unified software stacks, probably not separate systems for fleets and private cars. That’s what he thinks. Anyway, Tesla is leading that shift. And Xping, they’re moving in the same direction. And the thing is Tesla is worth a lot of money. Yeah, Xping is worth a tiny fraction of Tesla. But if Xen can become the next Tesla in China, that could do a lot of things for their stock price. So to conclude here, guys, this is exactly the kind of moment that signals a turning point. If Tesla is already delivering near level four performance in Silicon Valley, if Xpang is planning robo taxis by 2026, and if major CEOs are making naked across the bridge bets, then well, then the autonomous driving revolution is much closer than most people think. Let me know what you think. Is Tesla really near level four? Um, do you believe based on your experience driving a Tesla that they’re at level four potentially or not? Can Xpen catch up? And will Lou need to start training for his Golden Gate Dash? Thanks for watching, guys. Please remember to share this video u with someone else who might benefit from because it’s that sort of word of mouth that really helps grow the channel. You guys matter and I appreciate you. Bye-bye.
Tesla’s Robotaxi Breakthrough? Xpeng CEO Says It’s Almost Level 4!
Tesla’s latest Robotaxi progress is drawing major attention after Xpeng’s CEO suggested the system is now approaching Level 4 autonomy. His comments signal a possible breakthrough moment in the global self-driving race. If true, Tesla could be far closer to fully driverless operations than expected.
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