Tesla Changed China Forever. This Company Proves It

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]I went to China undercover to investigate [music] Tesla's biggest copycat. Holy crap, this is stuff that shouldn't exist, but it does. They've already built vision only self-driving that can compete with Tesla. I'm speechless. This is unbelievable.

[00:00:16]>> They developed their own AI chips and even built robots so realistic, they had to cut it open just to prove it wasn't human. We found this?

[00:00:25]And did I mention they're sold out of their flying cars for the next 2 years [music] with over 7,000 pre-orders?

[00:00:32]Pre-flight check first.

[00:00:35]So, this is how it gives birth right here. You can see that it comes out.

[00:00:39]It's on tracks inside of the trunk.

[00:00:43]Mommy.

[00:00:44]Hey guys, quick one. We've noticed that over a million of you guys are watching [music] every single month that seven out of 10 aren't subscribed yet. It doesn't cost you a thing, but it helps us get invited to events just like this [music] one. All right, that's it. If you enjoy our content, please go ahead and subscribe and let's get back to it.

[00:01:00]Honestly, I just can't shake off the connection I see between Tesla and how Xpeng is operating themselves because they're not just building a car, they're building intelligence that can move between different forms.

[00:01:11]Flying cars. I hope I just hope I don't end up like one of those scientists that has gone missing in or recently. This is like military-style stuff that we just should not be allowed to see, but we are taking you guys in today. A real-life flying car and this is not just a prototype. This is actually being produced and if they pull this off, it's going to change how we get around forever.

[00:01:33]>> [music] >> I mean, China's in a whole 'nother level right now. This is a full-tilt rotor hybrid electric flying car and the scale of it, but they figured it out with one modular design. It deploys vertically like a giant [music] consumer drone and is entering production right now. So, let me just give you guys a brief understanding of what we are looking at here. So, we have the aircraft here and then we have the mothership over here, and this deploys, it carries, and it can even charge the aircraft over there. So, in terms of scale, what we're looking at here is actually 18 ft long, it's 6 and 1/2 ft [music] wide, but it can fit into a normal parking space. There's six wheels on this thing, [music] and you can just drive it around like you would drive a normal car. And then when you're ready, over here is the eVTOL, which stands for vertical takeoff and landing, [music] and it has a foldable rotor system. So, everything folds up and it fits inside the mothership. And they're actually producing this. So, right now it costs around equivalent to $300,000.

[00:02:34]They're sold out for 2 years. They already have 7,000 pre-orders around the world, mostly in China and the Middle East. Go fly, you go explore, go for a hike, or think about this for like safety vehicles. If someone's stuck on a mountain, you take this, you go find them, bring them back to the car, you get to the hospital faster, safer.

[00:02:55]So many applications. And also, it would be cool just to own this for yourself.

[00:02:59]Would you guys buy one of these in the US if you could? The overall similarities between Tesla and Xpeng is impossible to ignore. In 2019, Tesla sued a former autopilot engineer who joined Xpeng, alleging he uploaded over 300,000 files of Tesla's autopilot source code before leaving. Later investigation showed Xpeng had not used Tesla's code or IP, and the case was eventually settled. Managing money used to feel way harder than it should have been. Like, I'm going to be real with you guys. I'm pretty careful with most things in my life, but when it comes to managing money, somehow that can get overlooked at times. I would be bouncing between my bank accounts, my credit card apps, um investment accounts, just trying to answer one simple question.

[00:03:45]>> [music] >> Am I actually doing okay? And that's why I started using Monarch Money. It basically pulls everything, my accounts, my cards, my loans, my investments into one clean dashboard. So, I'm able to see everything in about 30 seconds. [music] I don't have to swap between different apps or spreadsheets. And honestly, it just makes my brain and everything just feel calmer. What I like most is that it keeps me aware but without making me obsessive about it. Like I don't need a million notifications. I just need a clear breakdown of what I'm spending, what's fixed versus flexible. And I love that progress bar because it keeps me in check. Plus, the AI insights are actually really useful. So, it will flag weird spending or changes and then it [music] will explain it to me in plain English. So, I don't have to go through everything myself in order to find out what's going on. And this is the part that really matters. So, Monarch is private and ad-free. They don't sell your data. They connect to over 13,000 institutions. [music] They use bank-level encryption and everything is read-only. If you've ever felt like your money situation is just more complicated than it needs to be, this really just simplifies it. But everything you need to know in the description down below and let's get back to the video. There's two things that I noticed on the street here in China. One is how quiet it is because all the cars are electric. And two, when you cross the street, you basically say a prayer and hope for the best.

[00:05:05]There's a crosswalk, but uh no one stops. You just go for it. And XPeng's admiration for Tesla is no secret. Its CEO has praised Tesla and Musk as major inspirations for its own AI and autonomy direction. Even naming XPeng's cheapest car, the Mona MO3, is a tribute to Tesla's Model 3. This is the XPeng M03. Not to be confused with the Tesla Model 3, but they do have some similarities. If you look inside, there's no driver interface. But you see that little box on top right there?

[00:05:38]Well, they've done something really cool that I kind of wish Tesla would do because come over here to their accessories.

[00:05:46]They sell this. This is not third party either. You can buy a driver instrument cluster right here for $90. Just plug it in. You have that option instead of saying, "Hey, you guys won't want it."

[00:05:57]Well, what about the people that do want it? Like Tesla, Xpeng sees itself as a software-first company [music] betting on AI and vision-based autonomy. It uses 11 cameras and sensors [music] with a new in-house AI chip that reasons while self-driving. And we saw this over and over again in our testing. I don't know how it's able to take in so much information and react so quickly. Well, at all turns with I mean, look, people are crossing the street at the same time and it's going with the flow of This happens, for example, with this sort of people crossing. It would stop in the United States. But in this environment where there is so much chaos, You can't.

[00:06:34]>> It's going with the flow. And that's the reasoning element when it comes to self-driving.

[00:06:39]>> it right now. It's like It wants to get through.

[00:06:41]>> It wants to get through.

[00:06:43]And this I guess technically is its lane. I don't know why there's scooters Is this its lane? It is a lane, but they're >> The arrow is facing It's a one-way, but they're Yeah, they're going the wrong way. The majority of people are going the wrong way.

[00:06:57]>> [music] >> They're This is the suicide road.

[00:06:59]>> Suicide road. Its onboard computer delivers [music] up to 750 tops, even more than Tesla's AI for hardware currently offers. And after testing them side by side on China's chaotic streets, we were shocked how competitive Xpeng felt against Tesla, sometimes even better. But its biggest difference may be its pricing structure. Xpeng includes the tech in its cars, even the ones that start under $20,000, while Tesla charges a monthly subscription of $100 to use its FSD. So, I asked its CEO directly about this. I'm an independent journalist from the United States. And one thing that really stood out to me is that you're giving this self-driving tech for free, not as a subscription like a lot of other vehicle makers do. And I was curious what your thinking is behind this approach and if you see this as a long-term strategy. He told me they debated it for a while, but decided to keep it free for now since the tech isn't proven yet. But at some point that will probably change. In China, if you're in self-driving mode, by law it's required to have a blue light on the car so you know if the human is driving or if the car is driving. And there's also a blue light down here. So what do you guys think about that? Would you want this requirement in the US as well? Do you like knowing who's driving? Now up until last year, Xpeng had seven different models in production. All fully electric. And they've recently introduced a range extender SUV for larger families. This is my biggest turn on if you guys want to know. This is how you get a soccer mom excited right here.

[00:08:32]This is it. All right. So looks like a Range Rover, kind of has a Lexus style name, is Chinese, three rows, and it's hot. This is the Xpeng GX. And the range on this is going to blow your mind. 932 miles range. It does have a gas range extender. So on this side you have the gas, this side all electric. 800-V architecture so you know it charges extremely fast.

[00:09:05]Six seats inside. This is This is like what I want for my family.

[00:09:10]If they sold this in the US, I mean, game over. This is a robot on wheels. We have 3,000 tops AI compute power. We drove their self-driving tech, their VLA 2.0, in the busy streets of Guangzhou.

[00:09:23]We had scooters coming at us at all different directions. It was able to handle it better than the Tesla did.

[00:09:29]Blows my mind. I have never been in another vehicle's self-driving car where it was better than Tesla ever in my life. But Xpeng was able to do it. So, having this that is not just a car. This is an AI, an AI assistant. This is your robot that takes you from point A to point B, does everything for you. As a mom who's driving her kids around, it's just one less thing to take off your mental load. So, we drove it and it just kind of blew my mind cuz I've never experienced self-driving that was at Tesla's level, if not better in these this environment.

[00:10:04]And it's a new system, it's less than a year old. How do you think that they were able to get to the level that they're at so quickly?

[00:10:13]I think their approach is software-based and I I think they they drink a lot of information from Tesla, also. And uh even the CEO, he talks a lot about Tesla and they have people working in the States. Uh I think in Silicon Valley. Um trying to get information. So, I believe that then it's it's a Chinese company.

[00:10:38]Uh they do have a lot of resources, manpower. You probably saw already in the factory and the headquarters. So, the amount of R&D that they have, I think it's it makes it possible to to to do these very quickly.

[00:10:53]>> of leapfrogged ahead because they were able to take everything Tesla had. I know there was a lawsuit, but they it was thrown out.

[00:11:01]>> Yeah. Mhm. However, you're kind of implying that perhaps they did kind of take some of that information.

[00:11:08]>> believe that everybody's taking that information. So, Tesla is in fact the the the the pioneer of of the self-driving, at least in my uh vision.

[00:11:18]Uh so, it's it's obvious that all the other uh car manufacturers will look at it as um uh uh an option on how they are doing it and see how the consumers are then adopting the systems. But then they are making their own approach and VLA it's it's as they are presented it it's a different approach as Tesla is doing it.

[00:11:41]So they are taking a couple of components on the analysis of the information that they are getting from the roads, from the cameras and they are implementing a different way of doing it. And from what they are saying and it seems that they are achieving that they can bypass a lot of stuff so having less information but achieving the same performance.

[00:12:04]>> But it is a camera-based Yeah. vision-based system. I did notice though there are ultrasonic sensors as well. So Tesla's gotten rid of their ultrasonic sensors. I know that the ultrasonic are just for parking and stuff like that. So okay, so it's just to measure the position of the car. But they do have some I think it's microwave sensors in the front that do have some information but if I'm not mistaken even those they are removing from new cars and they are only vision-based now. I think so.

[00:12:39]>> it'll be very much like apples to apples when it comes to Tesla and their approach to self-driving. You live in Portugal and you have access to so many more vehicles than we have access to in the United States because you can have all the Chinese cars. Do you think how does Xpeng rate compared to the other Chinese vehicles? It's it's different.

[00:12:59]They are positioned themselves as innovative company and not as a big volume company. Because for instance in Portugal I I can give you that that detail. BYD is in fact the volume company. So they have small cars that we in Europe we like to have for the city and and cheap cars for for for that reason.

[00:13:25]And they are bringing volume to the streets. Xpeng is now being recognized as a premium brands even though that the price tag it's not on the premium level, okay? So this is what attracts people to the to the cars, but we still have the topic of the Chinese brands. So it's it's very common to see companies, especially companies, testing the cars, analyzing, loving the cars, but then afraid of going forward because it's a Chinese company. And we are still very European, so we prefer BMWs, Audis, and stuff like that. But if you bypass that, I believe that Xpeng has a path for for the market here.

[00:14:10]>> think that's one of the things that really surprised me a lot was just the overall build quality and their safety standards. We toured We all toured it together. I saw how they built these and how they test them and it was really kind of incredible. They actually when they do their testing, they don't just like run one test. They continue to use that same car for every single test that they do and see how it can withstand all the tests. So I think a lot of people think, "Oh, made in China." And they have this reputation of things from like 20 years ago, 30 years ago, but actually it's the exactly the opposite, especially when it comes to this company. I can't speak for all the companies, but I'm noticing with Xpeng the build quality is is really good. Do you feel like that as an owner? Yes, I feel that and after this year that I made 47,000 km with my car, with my family, so it's a normal car, it's not a test car. I use it with my family, small kids, and it still looks like it's brand new.

[00:15:13]So I do feel the car as a different level on build quality, Uh, even better than the normal European brands that we have and we consider as premium. All right, guys. Thanks for watching. Be sure to check out Hugo's channel link below and we'll catch you next time.

[00:15:31]All right, look at the escalators here.

[00:15:34]It's like a people mover at the airport.

[00:15:37]This is actually genius cuz if you were in a wheelchair or something or on a scooter, like you could still walk.

[00:15:54]Uh, I'm good.

[00:15:55]Grace and Kim, have some fans.

[00:15:58]They're practicing their English.

[00:16:01]You can see there's two propellers on either side and then we have six rotors.

[00:16:04]It's also a dual redundancy system. So, if two of the rotors give out, it will still be able to fly. Same thing with the battery. So, if part of the battery gets out, it will still be able to fly.

[00:16:14]It can go for between 20 and 30 minutes.

[00:16:16]It will refill on the mothership and then it can get up and go again. It can actually recharge five different times from the mothership. The battery on it is 38 kilowatt hours. I just think it's really cool also to think about the places that you could go with this and the opportunities. Also, from a business side, if you were to own this, it's around $300,000 here in China. The equivalent to that.

[00:16:41]But, if you bought this for business side, you could do tours with this and I actually feel like this is a lot safer in a lot of ways than a helicopter because of the AI that's built into it, how easy it is to be able to land it and have the AI take over for you. Also, that dual redundancy system makes it feel incredibly safe.

[00:17:01]All right, it's getting ready to land.

[00:17:08]Now, it will hover about 6 m above land when you go to land and then the rest is manually. So, it will hover for a second and then he's actually manually landing it.