守擂“AI王冠”，小鹏拆掉的拐杖不止“语言”

Core Viewpoint - The article emphasizes the importance of integrating intelligence into electric vehicles, highlighting that smart driving is the core battlefield for the future of the automotive industry, as articulated by He Xiaopeng, the founder of XPeng Motors [5][7]. Group 1: XPeng's Strategic Shift - XPeng Motors has transitioned to a new phase in its smart driving technology, appointing Liu Xianming, the head of the world foundation model, to lead its autonomous driving business, indicating a shift towards a large model-driven approach [5][7]. - The company has invested 2 billion yuan in developing its second-generation VLA (Vision-Language-Action) model, which aims to enhance the capabilities of its autonomous driving system by focusing on large-scale data and model training [7][24]. Group 2: Technological Innovations - The second-generation VLA model eliminates the language processing step, which previously acted as a bottleneck, allowing the system to learn directly from visual and action data, thereby improving efficiency and reducing latency [26][30]. - XPeng has collected nearly 100 million clips of video data for training, equating to the driving experience of 35,000 years, which is crucial for developing its autonomous driving capabilities [25][24]. Group 3: Competitive Landscape - XPeng faces increasing competition from companies like Li Auto and Huawei, which are also advancing their autonomous driving technologies, with Huawei's ADS 4.0 already deployed in over 1 million vehicles [6][20]. - The article discusses the challenges of the VLA model, particularly its high demands for multimodal data, computational power, and potential delays due to the language conversion process [20][21]. Group 4: Future Directions - XPeng aims to apply the new VLA paradigm to various applications, including Robotaxi, humanoid robots, and flying cars, as part of its vision for a "physical AI" empire [9][24]. - The company is committed to overcoming the uncertainties associated with its new approach, emphasizing the need for innovation and the willingness to abandon past successful experiences to explore new frontiers [40][41].