獨 Volkswagen Adopts China Xpeng VLA 2.0 Over Self-Development Of Self-Driving Solutions

*This content was translated by AI.

Volkswagen of Germany has adopted 'Vision-Language-Action 2.0', a next-generation autonomous driving solution from XPeng, and chose to introduce a Chinese solution instead of developing its own. The decision is expected to be recorded as the first historical case of global major automakers introducing highly autonomous driving software developed by Chinese companies into commercial models. Through this, Xpeng has secured Volkswagen as the first commercial customer of its state-of-the-art autonomous driving technology, making it a global provider of mobility artificial intelligence (AI) solutions beyond mere EV makers.

VLA 2.0, the core of this cooperation, is a large-scale end-to-end model developed by Xpeng and has strong performance to support level 4 autonomous driving. Unlike conventional methods, it is characterized by integrating visual information, language processing, and behavioral control into a single intelligent neural network. This dramatically speeds up data processing in complex real-world road conditions, enabling flexible and natural driving judgments like skilled human drivers. Through this solution, Volkswagen aims to strengthen its local competitiveness by instantly raising the self-driving performance of electric vehicles in the Chinese market to the world's best level.

The partnership between the two companies has continued to expand since July 2023 when Volkswagen acquired a roughly 4.99% stake in Xpeng. Initially, it focused on co-development of electric vehicle platforms, but later expanded the scope to build a joint electric/electronic (E/E) architecture, China Electronic Architecture (CEA). This adoption of VLA 2.0 means that this technological trust has been transferred to the core brain area of mobility called autonomous driving software. Xpeng plans to install VLA 2.0 in its new models, which will be released in March, and its robotaxi, which is scheduled to be produced later this year, and Volkswagen also plans to apply the intelligent solution to its lineup sequentially.

Xpeng is maximizing the versatility of AI technology by integrating autonomous driving organizations and smart cockpit teams into a 'General Intelligence Center'. By designing the driving function and the in-vehicle human interface (HMI) to share the same AI foundation model, the entire vehicle is made to operate as a single organic intelligence. This technological cohesion is expected to exert strong synergy in cooperation with Volkswagen. In addition, the two companies are strengthening their alliance across the ecosystem beyond technology supply by jointly creating more than 20,000 charging infrastructure through an agreement to build an ultra-fast charging network.

In the end, Volkswagen's choice of Xpeng's VLA 2.0 is the result of its judgment to solve the speed of AI innovation, which is difficult to catch up with traditional automobile manufacturing methods, through external blood transfusions. For Xpeng, by proving the stability and versatility of its software through Volkswagen, a global brand, it opened the door to technology exports to other manufacturers in the global market in the future.

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*This content was translated by AI.