Financials, Growth Back Up the Robotaxi Ambitions for XPeng Stock as Its CEO Tests a Fully Driverless Ride

China's electric vehicle (EV) race has always moved fast. Now, one of the country's biggest players wants to prove it can drive itself — literally.

XPeng (XPEV), the Guangzhou, China-based EV maker known for its intelligent driving software, has spent years building cars that help drivers. This year, it started building driverless cars. Let's take a closer look.

Xpeng CEO Takes the First Driverless Ride

XPeng CEO He Xiaopeng recently became the first person inside the company to complete a full robotaxi trip, from placing the order to arriving at his destination, according to a company statement. The ride confirmed that XPeng's ride-hailing, dispatch, and pick-up systems now work together as one connected service rather than separate pieces still being tested. The trip marked the start of employee testing for the company's robotaxi platform, which arrived just eight months after XPeng first showed off the project at its 2025 AI Day.

"Robotaxi represents an important step in XPeng's expansion from smart electric vehicles to robotic vehicles," He said. The CEO added that he views the service as one of the most important milestones in unlocking physical AI — AI machines built for the real world, not just the internet.

Inside the XPeng Robotaxi

The vehicle behind this milestone is XPeng's GX, and the company says it is China's first mass-produced robotaxi built entirely with in-house technology and engineered for Level 4 autonomy, meaning it can drive itself in most conditions without human help. 

Four of XPeng's own Turing AI chips power the car, giving it about 3,000 tera operations per second (TOPS) of onboard computing power. That is a measure of how many trillion operations the chip can handle each second, and it puts XPeng's hardware among the strongest in the industry.

Instead of the expensive laser sensors or detailed pre-mapped city data that many robotaxi rivals rely on, XPeng uses cameras paired with its VLA 2.0 software model. That system cuts response time to under 80 milliseconds and is designed to generalize across new cities without heavy retraining, the company said.

XPeng secured its road-testing permit for the vehicles in Guangzhou in January 2026 and formed a dedicated robotaxi business unit in March to manage the rollout. Pilot operations are planned for the second half of 2026, with a goal of “fully autonomous operations without [an] on-site safety officer by early 2027.”

Big Growth Numbers Back Up the Robotaxi Ambitions

The robotaxi push is landing at a pivotal moment for XPeng financially. The company delivered 62,682 vehicles in the first quarter, and He told analysts on the earnings call that he expects deliveries of 100,000 to 106,000 units in Q2, a jump of more than 60% from the prior quarter.

Total revenue fell almost 18% year-over-year (YOY) to RMB 13.03 billion ($1.92 billion) in Q1. XPeng also posted a net loss of RMB 1.78 billion ($262 million), largely tied to higher vehicle costs. Even so, gross margin expanded to 20.6%, up from 15.6% a year earlier.

CEO He Xiaopeng also told investors that international sales — boosted by new overseas factories in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Austria — are on pace to top 20% of total revenue starting in Q2, with the company aiming to double overseas deliveries for the full year.

Is XPEV Stock a Good Buy?

XPeng is not planning to run robotaxi fleets on its own. Instead, the company says it wants to supply the software, chips, and vehicles, then let local partners handle daily operations in each city. The company said it is already in talks with potential partners across Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.

For now, Guangzhou remains the testing ground. But if XPeng's driverless bet pays off the way its EV bet has, the company may end up exporting more than cars. It could be exporting the technology that decides who drives next.

Overall, Xpeng has a consensus “Moderate Buy” rating on Wall Street. Out of the 18 analysts covering XPEV stock, 11 recommend a “Strong Buy” rating, two recommend a “Moderate Buy," three recommend a “Hold” rating, and two analysts have a “Strong Sell." The average price target of $22.75 suggests potential upside of 71% from current levels.