Li Auto Integrates VLA Foundation Model Team; Zhan Kun Takes Full R&D Leadership

Li Auto recently restructured its autonomous driving team, appointing senior algorithm expert Zhan Kun to take full charge of the development and technical integration of the VLA (Vision-Language-Action) foundation model. He will oversee language, vision, and action modules previously scattered across different departments, unifying their support for autonomous driving, intelligent cockpit systems, and future robotics initiatives, and will report directly to CTO Xie Yan. Previously, the language component was led by Chief AI Scientist Chen Wei, while vision and action were managed by the autonomous driving team. Chen Wei joined Li Auto in 2021 and spearheaded the development of “Li Auto Mate” and the Mind GPT large language model; he has now departed the company. Zhan Kun graduated from Beihang University in 2016, previously worked at Baidu Apollo, and joined Li Auto in 2021, where he rose to become a head of a second-tier department. Li Auto plans to enhance its capabilities in language-behavior interaction and aims to deploy its self-developed M100 chip by 2026.