Gu Yongping, vice chairman and co-president of Xiaopeng Motors, said in an interview on Thursday between the Beijing Auto Show that robot taxis will not become an important business for at least five years.
This prediction seems at odds with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who previously announced that the first robot taxi will be released on August 8 this year.
Gu Hongdi said that if robot taxis become popular, it will have a revolutionary impact on transportation, “but it is necessary to actually achieve full commercial operation. I think it will take more than 5 years.”
“Currently, we don't take that into account when launching and planning sales,” he said.