(Yicai) March 4 -- Xpeng Motors is expected to achieve fully autonomous driving within one to three years, making such technology a true part of people’s daily travel habits, according to the Chinese new energy vehicle startup’s founder and chief executive officer.

This goal will be achieved thanks to the support of Xpeng’s new second-generation vision-language-action model, which will undergo rapid iterations at an unprecedented speed in the future, He Xiaopeng said at the launch event for the carmaker’s second-gen VLA on March 2.

The second-gen VLA is the brain of Xpeng’s self-driving and intelligent driving systems, specifically designed for Level-4 autonomous driving, He explained. Eliminating the language phase to enable direct vision to action, it can achieve a 12-fold increase in running speed and an 80 percent reduction in response latency, thanks to continued improvements in chip computing power.

According to Xpeng’s plan, the second-gen VLA will be officially rolled out at the end of this month, set to be equipped on all Xpeng Ultra and Ultra SE models. Future Xpeng models launched in the global market will be available in both basic and premium intelligent assisted driving versions.

Robotaxis with Xpeng’s second-gen VLA have already begun public road testing in China, with the goal of launching trial operations by the end of the year. The system is scheduled to start global road testing soon and global deliveries next year. Germany’s Volkswagen Group will be the first customer.

Editor: Futura Costaglione