XPeng Clarifies Rumors on ADAS Development, Confirms Gen 2 VLA Distillation On Track for Deployment

On August 20, XPeng Group issued a statement via its official Weibo account clarifying that recent online reports regarding the development progress of its advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) for certain vehicle models are false. The company stated that the deployment of its second-generation VLA (Vision-Language-Action) distillation system is proceeding as planned, and further updates will be promptly shared through official channels. According to prior reports, XPeng officially launched its second-generation VLA intelligent driving system on March 2. The system reportedly improves traffic efficiency by 30% compared to traditional L2 ADAS and Robotaxi solutions, and features capabilities such as recognizing police hand gestures and automatically slowing down in scenarios like sobriety checkpoints. He Xiaopeng, Chairman and CEO of XPeng Group, remarked that end-to-end small models have reached their performance ceiling, marking a “watershed moment” for intelligent driving development. XPeng emphasized that autonomous driving is fundamentally a physical AI challenge, and understanding the operational rules of the real physical world serves as the foundation for its Turing second-generation VLA model. Currently, the model supports both Chinese and European markets with a unified system architecture and is accelerating mass-production readiness for Europe, with the goal of gradually delivering vehicles to overseas customers starting in 2027.