XPeng


Xpeng or Xiaopeng Motors, also known as XMotors.ai, is a Chinese electric vehicle manufacturer. The company is headquartered in Guangzhou, with offices in Mountain View, California in the US.

History

Xpeng was co-founded in 2014 by Henry Xia and He Tao, former senior executives at GAC Group with expertise in automotive technology and R&D. Initial backers included He Xiaopeng, founder of UCWeb and former Alibaba executive, and Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi. Prominent Chinese and international investors included Alibaba, Foxconn and IDG Capital. A further funding round in 2018 saw Alibaba's vice president Joseph Tsai join the corporate board of Xpeng.
Xpeng's subsidiary in America XMotors.ai held a permit for testing self-driving cars by the California Department of Motor Vehicles from September 2018.The permit was revoked in February 2020 due to Xpeng failing to submit a disengagement report.
Xpeng launched its first production model, the Xpeng G3 SUV, in December 2018, at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, with first delivery to customers the following spring. Its second model, the P7 four-door electric sedan, premiered in April 2019 at the 2019 Auto Shanghai show, with delivery to Chinese customers scheduled for Q2 2020.
In May 2019, Xpeng launched its own peer-to-peer ridesharing service, serving Guangzhou with its own vehicles.
In November 2019, Xpeng raised $400 million in a third fundraising round, which sees Xiaomi joins as a strategic investor of Xpeng.

Models

Controversies

In March 2019, Tesla accused an Xpeng employee of intellectual property infringement of its Autopilot source code. Cao Guangzhi, a former Tesla employee and prospective Xpeng new hire, was alleged to have made unauthorized copies of Tesla's Autopilot source code before leaving Tesla to join Xpeng Motors. Cao admitted uploading Tesla's source code to his iCloud account prior to leaving Tesla, but denied claims of intellectual property theft. Cao left the company in March 2020.
In response to these accusations, Xpeng launched an internal investigation of the alleged theft, and found no evidence of transfer of the intellectual property..