XPeng gains approval for citywide Level 4 robotaxi demonstrations in Guangzhou

XPeng has received approval to run Level 4 robotaxi demonstrations across all of Guangzhou, making its home city the company’s first testing ground for commercial deployment of the service. The authorization, announced Oct. 26, covers XPeng Yoyo, but does not mean unrestricted public access from the outset.

The company will begin with invitation-only rides. Users must receive a code through the XPeng Yoyo mini program before booking a vehicle in the app, and XPeng plans to expand both eligibility and the service footprint gradually while assessing safety, operations and passenger experience.

The citywide designation shifts the programme beyond technical validation toward testing a mobility service and its business model. XPeng intends to use the demonstrations to evaluate order response, dispatch, pickups, exception handling, vehicle utilization, service costs and fleet-management efficiency. It also plans to adjust passenger processes, pickup and drop-off points, dispatch and cross-district coordination in response to demand and traffic conditions.

Guangzhou is XPeng’s headquarters and vehicle-production base, and the company has described it as its first city for robotaxi commercialization and commercial-deployment exploration. Its first mass-produced robotaxi rolled off the line at the Guangzhou base in May, according to Startup Fortune.

The GX-based Yoyo uses four in-house Turing AI chips, providing 3,000 TOPS of computing power, alongside XPeng’s VLA 2.0 model. XPeng says its robotaxi business is built on its smart-electric-vehicle technology stack and uses a vision-first system without lidar or high-definition maps.

He Xiaopeng has said the company intends to act as a technology provider and ecosystem enabler rather than directly operating large fleets. XPeng plans to offer vehicle platforms, software and AI capabilities to partners, while pursuing a standardized robotaxi solution for deployment in other cities. The company says experience in Guangzhou will support localized international deployment, and it has said its goal is passenger service without an in-vehicle safety driver by 2027.