Volkswagen Becomes XPENG's First Customer for VLA 2.0 Intelligent Driving System - CleanTechnica

XPENG Motors announced its next-generation intelligent driving system, VLA 2.0 (Vision-Language-Action), which will begin global delivery in 2027. Significantly, Volkswagen has become the first customer to adopt this technology in the Chinese market, marking a notable collaboration between a traditional automaker and a leading AI-driven autonomous driving developer. VLA 2.0 represents a departure from conventional modular autonomous systems by employing an end-to-end vision-to-action architecture that eliminates intermediate language-based reasoning layers. This design enhances efficiency and responsiveness, with early tests showing a 23% improvement in driving efficiency and performance comparable to experienced human drivers in dense traffic. Powered by XPENG’s proprietary Turing AI chip—a 40-core processor capable of handling large-scale AI models in real time—VLA 2.0 supports a “drive anywhere” experience, including complex environments like rural roads and areas without high-definition maps. This reduces reliance on pre-mapped routes, enabling more scalable global deployment