Xpeng’s head of autonomous driving quits, rumored to join Nvidia

the resignation of Xpeng's vice president of autonomous driving, Xinzhou Wu, and the impact it may have on the company's autonomous driving path.

Key points include:

• Wu played a pivotal role in helping Xpeng gain an edge over its EV rivals in the intelligent driving race.
• Xpeng is recognized for its in-house, full-stack development team responsible for creating the advanced driver assistance system Xpeng Navigation Guided Pilot (XNPG).
• Xpeng aims to reduce the number of manual takeovers per 1,000 kilometers when using its highway navigation to one or fewer by the end of 2023.
• Tesla has not made its Full Self-Driving (FSD) system available in China yet.
• Wu may be taking up a senior position in Nvidia's autonomous driving division.
• Xpeng recently announced a promising investment from Volkswagen for co-developing electric vehicle models for the Chinese market.
• Wu's resignation marks the end of an era at Xpeng and highlights the talent loss for the company.
• The resignation comes amid escalating tensions between the US and China, leading to downsizing of Chinese tech giants' US operations.