He Xiaopeng Wants to Skip L3, Yu Kai Says Smart Driving Is Still at the 'Usable' Stage

Wujie A Niu | Wujie Frontier

"Autonomous driving should skip L3."

On October 21, at the 2026 World Intelligent Connected Vehicles Conference, He Xiaopeng, Chairman and CEO of XPeng Motors, put forward this view.

In the same panel discussion, BYD's Yang Dongsheng emphasized that L2 to L3 is a major threshold. Horizon Robotics' Yu Kai spoke about the distance from "usable" to "loved," while Momenta's Cao Xudong expressed optimism about accelerating technological progress.

NIO's Li Bin asked directly, "How many users are actually willing to pay?"

He Xiaopeng Wants to Skip L3 and Look Directly at L4

He Xiaopeng advocates considering L2 and L4 together, applying L4 capabilities to mass-produced vehicles.

L2 is combined driving assistance, L3 is conditional autonomous driving, and L4 is high autonomous driving. He Xiaopeng's doubt about L3 lies in the fact that although driving responsibility is transferred to the system to some extent, the experience and safety have not improved accordingly. He regards the best current L3 as an enhanced form of L2.

His technical timeline is the second half of 2028, when L4 is expected to land, requiring the joint development of the entire software and hardware stack. On the policy side, he gives a window from 2028 to 2032, with different countries, regions, and scenarios progressing at different paces.

Speaking about XPeng and Tesla's side-by-side testing in Europe, He Xiaopeng stated that XPeng is applying L4 capabilities to mass-produced vehicles. To reach safety takeover intervals of ten thousand kilometers or even one hundred thousand kilometers, there are still enormous challenges.

Yang Dongsheng on L3: First Pass the Extreme Scenario Test

Yang Dongsheng, Senior Vice President of BYD Group and President of the Automotive New Technology Research Institute, views the leap from L2 to L3 as crossing a major threshold.

His explanation is that L2 systems can disengage under conditions such as severe weather, with driving responsibility still resting with the driver. Entering L3, the system must be able to handle more extreme situations.

Tire blowouts, slippery roads, and pedestrians suddenly appearing are all examples he cited at the conference. These situations occur rarely, but the consequences can be severe, placing higher demands on system safety.

Yang Dongsheng predicts that L3 in limited scenarios has hope of landing in 2028, and higher-level autonomous driving is expected to iterate one to two more years on that basis.

Also mentioning 2028, He Xiaopeng was referring to L4 technology, while Yang Dongsheng was referring to L3 in limited scenarios.

Yu Kai Says the Distance from 'Usable' to 'Loved' Is Still Far

Yu Kai, founder and CEO of Horizon Robotics, did not give a definitive answer on whether smart driving has entered the "second half." He noted that in technology R&D, there are still many problems to solve every day.

Work from Creator Alliance, reviewed and approved.