When XPENG invited me to China for a four-day press shuttle spanning Guangzhou and Beijing, I’m going to admit my expectancies had been combined. Daring claims about self-driving tech from a Chinese language EV emblem—that I might heard sooner than. A flying vehicle was once one thing else solely.
I used to be joined by means of round 100 newshounds, content material creators, and influencers from around the globe, which advised me in an instant that XPENG was once enjoying for a global target audience. This wasn’t a home release dressed up with a couple of overseas faces.
What adopted over the ones 4 days rearranged my considering in techniques I did not be expecting. This is why.
XPENG coated the price of go back and forth, lodging, and foods for this shuttle. As at all times, editorial choices—together with the critiques expressed on this article—stay solely my very own.
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Arriving in Guangzhou: first impressions
China is not what maximum Westerners be expecting
I flew from Newcastle within the U.Ok. to Guangzhou by the use of Dubai, touchdown past due at evening on April twentieth. Even at that hour, a town of nineteen million folks in southern China’s Pearl River Delta does not can help you forget about it.
One of the crucial issues that shocked me maximum, and endured to during the shuttle, was once how blank the whole lot was once—Beijing particularly was once immaculate. The buying groceries department shops there have been surely bizarre: multi-story complexes stuffed with Western manufacturers, electric retail outlets stocking the most recent devices, or even vehicle showrooms sitting along the standard retail combine.
The folk had been similarly disarming. In spite of an inevitable language barrier—English is not broadly spoken—everybody I encountered was once surely welcoming and hospitable, and I were given on some distance higher than I might anticipated.
Sensible tip: do your virtual homework sooner than you fly
Ahead of leaving, I researched what touring in China in reality comes to from a tech point of view, and I am happy I did. There aren’t any Google products and services, no WhatsApp, and no get right of entry to to maximum Western apps and not using a VPN—I downloaded one on each my iPhone and MacBook previously, and it labored slightly neatly during.
China may be nearly solely cashless, and overseas playing cards are not at all times permitted, so I arrange AliPay forward of time. I additionally downloaded WeChat for messaging, Google Translate for daily verbal exchange, and AMap for navigation—they all very important, and all value sorting sooner than you board the airplane.
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XPENG’s HQ: a campus constructed round Bodily AI
A showroom the place a humanoid robotic greets you on the door
After gathering my transient Chinese language using license at the morning of the twenty first—a demand for any using right through the shuttle—we headed to XPENG’s flagship AI Mobility Revel in Middle on the corporate’s World Headquarters in Guangzhou’s Tianhe Good Town. The three.9 million-square-foot campus options company showrooms, self sufficient using presentations, and a devoted flying vehicle exhibition.
What stops you on your tracks, although, is IRON—XPENG’s humanoid robotic, deployed at the showroom flooring to greet guests, exhibit automobiles, and help with gross sales. Status 5 ft 8 inches tall and weighing round 154 kilos, with over 60 joints, 200 levels of freedom, and dexterous palms with 22 levels of freedom each and every, it strikes with a fluidity that does not really feel like a gimmick. XPENG plans to have IRON operating as a gross sales assistant in its retail retail outlets by means of Q1 2027.
That is what XPENG method by means of Bodily AI
IRON runs at the identical underlying AI structure as XPENG’s vehicles and flying automobiles—the VLA 2.0 basis fashion that powers the corporate’s self-driving gadget, its robotaxi fleet, and the ARIDGE flying vehicle. The theory is a unmarried AI mind working throughout more than one bodily platforms, from automobiles to humanoids.
It is an formidable thought, and seeing it within the flesh—slightly actually—makes it really feel significantly much less summary.
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Within XPENG’s factories
A vehicle manufacturing line run nearly solely by means of robots
Day two endured with manufacturing unit excursions. Within one in all XPENG’s vehicle production amenities, what struck me in an instant was once how few people had been provide at the manufacturing flooring. Welding, element motion, and meeting are treated nearly solely by means of robots, with folks showing principally on the finish of the road to hold out high quality exams.
It is a huge, exact, quietly spectacular operation—and it units the tone for a way XPENG approaches construction issues.
The flying vehicle manufacturing unit is in a class of its personal
From there, we moved to the ARIDGE facility, the place XPENG manufactures its flying vehicle. The corporate has combined automobile manufacturing tactics with strategies borrowed without delay from the aerospace trade, making a manufacturing line that does not take a seat well in both class.
The flying vehicle—formally referred to as a Land Plane Provider—is already bought out for years forward, with patrons coming closely from the Heart East. That truth by myself advised me this was once well beyond the concept that degree.
Staring at it fly in individual
The demo came about out of doors the manufacturing unit. A pilot took the controls of the ARIDGE, lifted off vertically, modified course, flew a trail, stopped, reversed direction, and landed cleanly—the entire thing lasted round two mins.
Staring at a real flying gadget take off and land in entrance of you, constructed by means of a vehicle corporate, does one thing in your sense of what is imaginable.
How the ARIDGE gadget in reality works
The flying unit folds its rotors and stows itself into the again of a devoted provider car in beneath 5 mins, by the use of a one-button mechanism. The provider recharges the flyer—you get round 20 to twenty-five mins of flight time in step with price, and the provider can most sensible it up roughly six occasions sooner than desiring a price itself.
At round $300,000, the ARIDGE is not a mass-market product but, however it is a actual one—and that difference issues.
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Beijing: workshops, Auto China, and an evening power
A complete day of workshops sooner than the principle match
After flying internally from Guangzhou to Beijing at the night time of the twenty second, day 3 was once given over to workshops on the resort masking design philosophy, clever using technique, and the IRON program in additional element. It was once helpful context—and in hindsight, it made the general day land significantly more difficult.
Auto China 2026 is sort of incomprehensibly huge
April twenty fourth was once Auto China 2026, the Beijing Motor Display. I knew it could be giant, however I wasn’t ready for slightly how giant. At one level, I checked my telephone and located I might walked 5 and a part miles—solely indoors—and had observed possibly 1 / 4 of the ground.
The era on show throughout the entire display was once bizarre: vehicles that would jump like West Coast low-riders, rear cabins with fold-down cinema monitors and foot therapeutic massage purposes, and comfort options at worth issues that bore little resemblance to what we are used to within the West. XPENG’s press convention incorporated a Q&A with the CEO and vp masking international plans—in particular related given the logo has not too long ago arrived in the United Kingdom marketplace.
I left the display early—it was once value it
I reduce my time on the display brief as a result of I had someplace extra necessary to be again on the resort. It grew to become out to be the proper name.
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Trying out VLA 2.0 on Beijing’s streets at evening
600 horsepower, complete self-driving, and a $41,000 price ticket
Again on the resort, I climbed into an XPENG P7 Extremely—a surely hanging fastback saloon completed in lime inexperienced, with 600 horsepower, twin motors, and all-wheel power. In China, it retails for the an identical of round $41,000, which takes some being used to whilst you believe what that buys you.
The automobile was once provided with XPENG’s VLA 2.0 clever using gadget—the logo’s complete self-driving era, with international supply deliberate for 2027 and Volkswagen already signed up as its first global buyer.
I used to be bracing myself—and I used to be incorrect
I’m going to be truthful: my expectancies moving into were not top. I am a deficient passenger at the most productive of occasions, and newshounds at the shuttle who had skilled Tesla’s FSD described it as succesful however competitive on the throttle and beneath braking. I used to be quietly steeling myself for a traumatic 45 mins. What I in reality skilled was once the other.
45 mins thru Beijing visitors, palms off the wheel
I pulled out of the resort vehicle park and, as soon as at the highway, engaged the gadget. For the following 40 to 45 mins, the P7 Extremely drove itself thru Beijing’s night time visitors—dense lanes, fast-moving vehicles, roadworks, cyclists, and scooter riders working solely with out lighting fixtures within the pitch black at round seven within the night time.
The automobile treated it all. What constantly shocked me was once how clean it felt—surely car-like in its acceleration and braking, now not mechanical or lurching.
The only second I just about stepped in
At one level, I watched in my reflect as a vehicle got here up quick on my inside of. The P7 Extremely indicated and started to tug throughout, and my intuition was once to interfere. I held again.
The automobile had already calculated the space, and the opposite motive force—who may just see the blue lighting fixtures alongside the frame that sign a complete self-driving car is energetic—adjusted accordingly. I by no means had to take over. Now not as soon as in 45 mins.
The journalist within the subsequent vehicle felt precisely the similar
Once I were given out, I ran into Larry Evans from CleanTechnica, who had simply completed his personal run. “I am completely blown away,” he mentioned, and I advised him I felt the similar. Once I requested whether or not he’d felt extra like a motive force or a passenger, he did not hesitate—passenger, solely.
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What 4 days with XPENG in reality tells you
It is a tech corporate that occurs to construct automobiles
Spending 4 days inside of XPENG’s operation—the showroom flooring, the factories, the workshops, and Beijing’s streets at evening—left me with one transparent takeaway. This isn’t a Chinese language vehicle emblem attempting so as to add some tech gloss. It is a era corporate that builds automobiles, flying machines, and humanoid robots because the outputs of a unmarried AI technique.
The flying vehicle is not an idea. VLA 2.0 is not vaporware. Volkswagen is not a naive buyer. And IRON is not a industry display prop—it’s going to be operating in a dealership close to you quicker than you could suppose.
The space is smaller than the general public within the West understand
Whether or not what is popping out of China represents a real long-term risk to established Western automobile avid gamers is a query the trade remains to be operating thru. However from what I noticed in Guangzhou and Beijing, the space is smaller than the general public appear to suppose—and it is remaining quick.
