Having your car braking automatically in an emergency at 130 km per hour and coming to a complete standstill without hitting the obstacle. Some cars can do that today, and Xpeng shows how to do it with its newest G7 SUV equipped with a Turing AI chip, even at night.
Xpeng shared a video on China’s Weibo channel, showing a G7 safely braking for a stationary obstacle on the highway at 130 km/h. In China, the maximum allowed speed on highways is 120 km/h. The stopping distance from 130 km/h is approximately 130–140 meters, in ideal conditions. The Xpeng G7 also reportedly did this at night at 120 km/h, detecting pedestrians and obstacles.
No complete stop guaranteed
Many systems today will not guarantee a complete stop at 130 km/h. Still, they can dramatically reduce the impact speed or prevent a crash if the obstacle is moving (e.g., another vehicle slowing down). A moving obstacle is far more challenging to assess.
Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) is not a new concept. It has been legally required on new vehicles in the EU under the General Safety Regulation (GSR) since July 6, 2022, for new car types and from July 2024 for all car models. Apart from AEB, they are required to offer Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA), Lane Keeping Assist (LKA), Driver Drowsiness Detection, and Data recording.
AEB has been mandatory since 2022
In the EU, there are defined minimum and tested speed ranges that AEB must function within, but no maximum speed threshold. The AEB system must be able to automatically brake between 10 km/h and 60 km/h for pedestrian detection and react to vehicles in front from 10 km/h up to at least 60–80 km/h, depending on the scenario (stationary, moving, braking). And it has to function in urban and interurban conditions.
There is no legal requirement for AEB to work at very high speeds like 130 km/h. Manufacturers are free to go beyond the minimum, and many do, especially German premium brands and Volvo, for instance. But there are no guarantees.
Full stops are rare and condition-dependent. Most systems aim to reduce severity, rather than stopping it completely. Or some combine Autonomous Emergency Braking with active obstacle avoidance, meaning they can steer around an obstacle if braking alone won’t prevent a collision.
Advanced sensors and strong brakes
At those speeds, AEB requires advanced sensors (such as radar, lidar, and camera fusion), fast computing, and robust braking systems. Xpeng claims its G7 SUV is the first to feature three ‘Turing AI’ chips developed by the company itself, delivering a computing power of +2,200 TOPS, making the G7 the world’s first AI vehicle to achieve L3 computing power.
Xpeng says that a single chip has the computing power equivalent to three mainstream smart driving chips, like Nvidia’s AGX Thor and Tesla’s AI4 chips. Which camera and radar systems the G7 is using isn’t specified. Still, Xpeng’s XPILOT suite, which is also used on P7, G3, and G9, relies on a fusion of cameras, radars, and, in the case of G9, a cabin-facing AIPO radar.
