China’s Xpeng brings budget Tesla rival to Europe with robots and flying cars

Chinese electric vehicle maker Xpeng flew into Munich this week with more than just a new car. The company used the European launch of its L03 SUV to tell the world it is building robots and flying cars too.

The launch event was branded a “Physical AI” event, a term Xpeng uses to describe its approach of combining self-built AI chips and large language models with physical products like cars, robots, and power systems.

The company says this technology currently drives three product lines: electric vehicles, humanoid robots, and flying cars.

Xpeng is no small player in EVs. It has shipped more than a million vehicles in China and sold over 60,000 cars in Europe since entering the market in 2024. It now sells in 65 countries worldwide.

At the event, the CEO He Xiaopeng, said that humanoid robots and flying cars are not sci-fi anymore. In fact, both the robot, named Iron and the flying car named Aridge are soon going to be mass-produced.

Iron has also made appearances at the company’s previous events for about a year. As previously reported by Cryptopolitan China is prioritizing robots more than AI models unlike the U.S.

Even though Aridge’s has been in development for 13 years now, He said it will be released in the near future for European customers.

Meanwhile, L03 is a compact SUV producing 180 kW of power with a WLTP range of up to 445 km. At €35,600, it is priced below rival models from Tesla and Hyundai.

All three of Xpeng’s product lines, the car, the robot, and the flying car, run on Turing chips, a processor the company developed in-house, featuring 750 TOPS per chip and a 40-core processor.

Chasing Tesla on self-driving

On the autonomous driving side, Xpeng laid out a roadmap to reach Level 4 autonomy by 2028.

That would mean the car can drive itself without human input under defined conditions, a step beyond the Level 2 systems that Tesla’s Full Self-Driving and comparable Chinese systems currently represent, where drivers must remain alert and ready to take control at any moment.

Xpeng’s CEO has said the company’s VLA system already outperforms Tesla’s FSD on narrow roads and in tight situations.

The autonomous driving technology has already moved beyond Xpeng’s own vehiclesVolkswagen began mass-producing its first jointly developed model in March, using Xpeng’s driving systems and Turing chips. The company is also building robotaxis on the same technology framework.

Google maps deal makes Xpeng a first in Asia

Xpeng also announced a partnership with Google Maps for vehicles sold outside China, making it the first car company from the Asia-Pacific region to ship vehicles with Google Maps built directly into the navigation system. Rather than requiring drivers to download the app or mirror their phone screen, the Google Maps technology will be embedded natively into Xpeng’s own map interface through the Google Maps Auto SDK.

The integration will support real-time traffic guidance, EV trip planning, and energy estimation, and will also feed into Xpeng’s NGP assisted driving system. Overseas buyers of the L03 will be the first in the Xpeng lineup to get the upgraded experience.

The company has a dedicated research and development center in Munich, and the L03 will go on sale across 64 countries and regions.

Sven De Smet, Xpeng’s head of product in Europe, summed up the company’s pitch simply: “We are a technology company that makes cars. Not a car company that uses tech.”

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