Tesla’s Full Self Driving (Supervised) has received praise from an unlikely source, after the CEO of Chinese rival Xpeng had a hands-on experience with FSD in California. The encounter left him excited about the future of autonomous driving, predicting that autonomous driving will have its ChatGPT moment in 2025, according to his post on Chinese social media Weibo.
He Xiaopeng, the boss of Chinese EV maker Xpeng Motors, has stated he expected the ChatGPT moment of autonomously driving to happen next year. The company executive believes full autonomous driving is less than a year away, and riders will finally be able to let their cars drive themselves without supervision.
The conviction came after Xiaopeng took a Tesla Model 3 with FSD (Supervised) 12.3.6 for a spin while visiting the US. He planned to test Tesla’s and Waymo’s autonomous offerings to determine the best the US has to offer.
Here is feedback from XPeng CEO after testing FSD:“In the past couple of days, I had the chance to experience FSD version 12.3.6 in California, and I also took a ride in a Waymo vehicle. Overall, Waymo performed better in downtown San Francisco, while FSD excelled in Silicon… https://t.co/LbattjKnrH pic.twitter.com/iZ6AnATNm3— Ray (@ray4tesla) June 25, 2024
Xiaopeng gave his personal feedback, which has been translated and posted on X (formerly Twitter) by @ray4tesla. He had praises for each system, writing, “In the past couple of days, I had the chance to experience FSD version 12.3.6 in California, and I also took a ride in a Waymo vehicle. Overall, Waymo performed better in downtown San Francisco, while FSD excelled in Silicon Valley and on the highways, achieving very high scores and handling various road conditions smoothly.
“I’m truly impressed by the significant progress FSD has made in just a few months. We plan to learn from FSD’s excellent features and user experience. I believe 2025 will be the Chat GPT moment for fully autonomous driving!”
This was followed by a video post of his ride with FSD (Supervised) activated, in which he expressed how smooth FSD (Supervised) was and made him feel at ease, like a human was at the wheel.
However, he added that Chinese roads are more complex with more people and cars. He can’t wait to see the autonomous driving package’s performance in his home country. He might be getting his wish soon, as Tesla will soon be testing FSD on 10 cars in China.
Xiaopeng then closed by inviting his Tesla counterpart Elon Musk to experience his company’s XNGP while leaving the door open to collaboration.
