On the road with Highway Navigation Guided Pilot, the semi-autonomous driving tech from XPeng

XPeng Inc. releases autonomous technology

XPeng Inc. released their Highway Navigation Guided Pilot (NGP) software to customers via an over-the-air (OTA) update on January 26, and has already logged over one million kilometres within its first 25 days.

Youtuber Wheelsboy visited XPeng’s headquarters, and demonstrated the company’s NGP technology on an electric P7 sedan:

XPeng’s NGP features

Owners are required to watch an instructional video and complete a quiz before the software features are unlocked. Once operational, XPeng’s NGP can perform the following functions:

• Automatic lane changing and overtaking with lane optimisation

• Automatic speed limit adjustment

• Automatic changing of highways

• Automatic highway ramp entering and exiting

• Collision avoidance, in -lane and while changing lanes

• Identification and avoidance of obstacles on the road

Customers are required to watch a safety video regarding the operation of NGP before using the features. Image: XPeng

XPeng is working hard to gather data from customers on the road to improve their technology. NGP utilises cameras, sensors, radar and lidar for its suite of autonomous functions, whereas Tesla has avoided lidar technology, with Elon Musk going so far as to say “lidar is a fool’s errand” and “Anyone relying on lidar is doomed. Doomed!”

We know that Tesla’s autonomous systems are a technological tour-de-force, with dual chips for redundancy, and a processor capable of over 144 trillion operations per second (TOPS). For comparison, XPeng’s in-car computer is currently rated at 30 TOPS, but the company promises increases to the computing power over time. We’re yet to see how well XPeng’s NGP software works outside of China, but Wheelsboy’s video demonstrates promising signs of competent driver assistance technology.

Tesla's Updated Visualisations and UI with Full Self Driving Update

A number of Tesla customers in North America who are deemed expert, careful drivers have taken to social media to highlight their observations on Tesla’s Full Self Driving (FSD) software version 2020.40.8.12. The release notes for the update are as follows:

The driving visualization has been improved to better support Full Self-Driving capabilities by increasing the display size to show additional surrounding information. The next turn will now appear above the visualization if the navigation turn list is covered by another app.

With the larger visualization, select items have slightly moved but will continue to look and behave the same. Some notable differences include the following:

• Quick access to the backup camera and wipers has moved to the bottom bar.

• Autopilot set speed is now displayed directly below the speedometer and can continue to be adjusted using the right steering wheel scroll wheel. The speed will turn blue when Autopilot is engaged.

Tesla’s FSD software has only been live for a week, yet owners are already reporting improvements to the system’s ability to cope with difficult turns and intersections. The company’s CEO Elon Musk replied to a question from a Tesla Owners’ Group on Twitter about how this update would improve FSD on the road. Musk stated that “We measure this primarily in intervention probability. This update addressed several issues, resulting in perhaps ~1/3 fewer interventions. Many of the improvements consist of fixing silly bugs vs grand eureka moments. True for most beta releases in my experience,”

Unfortunately, a release date for a global roll out of FSD is not yet known.

You can watch Tesla Owner @tesla_raj explore the new user interface below:

Tesla Owner James Locke uploaded an extended drive using the early beta Full Self Driving software: