XPeng Stands Firm on Vision-Only Autonomous Driving, Says LiDAR No Longer Essential for Cars

During a media Q&A session following the XPeng GX launch event on May 21, He Xiaopeng, Chairman and CEO of XPeng Inc., stated that while LiDAR is a good technology, it is no longer essential in the automotive field—a position XPeng firmly stands by. He noted that although the proportion of vehicles priced above RMB 150,000 equipped with LiDAR is increasing, XPeng feels no pressure to follow suit. Liu Xianming, Head of XPeng’s General AI Center, added that the necessity of LiDAR depends on a company’s own technological roadmap, with no absolute standard; for users, the actual performance of autonomous driving matters more than sensor configurations. XPeng remains confident in its decision not to use LiDAR, a stance grounded in the real-world effectiveness of its second-generation VLA system under extreme weather, nighttime conditions, and complex driving scenarios—achieved through high computing power, large AI models, and dense sensor arrays.