XPeng Proves Itself: A Calibration of Trust

“Years later, when robots finally decided to rebel against humans, IRON would always recall that night in the distant past - that pair of scissors not only cut through her leg muscles but also severed humanity's future.”

Regarding the “self - verification” incident of XPeng's robot, netizens with rich imaginations have already imagined the plot framework of a movie in the style of the opening of One Hundred Years of Solitude. A normal technology product demonstration has unexpectedly gone viral.

The incident started on November 5th at the XPeng Technology Day. The humanoid robot IRON made its first dynamic public appearance, showing a graceful catwalk. Subsequently, the speculation that “there was a real person inside” quickly exploded on various social platforms, evolving into a wave of doubts about XPeng's “fraud”.

Photon Planet was also on - site at that time. Of course, there was some amazement, but there were no major emotional ripples. IRON's dynamic appearance was a necessary step for humanoid robots to move from “PPT production” to mass production. Moreover, IRON did not demonstrate the high - level ability that we most wanted to see and that is most representative of humanoid robots - fine hand movements.

As for fraud, like He Xiaopeng, we never had such a thought. A technology company of XPeng's scale has no need and will never commit fraud in such a result demonstration. It's like a leading food company faking its ingredient list. If it's not exposed, it might seem okay, but once discovered, the enterprise will face a catastrophic disaster.

The root cause is that everyone on - site knows very well that it is still a long way off for humanoid robots to achieve the intelligence and motion control performance shown in movies. An estimate of 5 - 8 years as a starting point can only be considered highly optimistic.

But perhaps the slender female robot precisely hit a certain nerve of the public. Coupled with details such as clearly visible underwear straps and extremely natural walking movements, it jointly created an unexpected “spot the difference” frenzy.

Whether it's the “kinematics experts” who assert that “this gait looks fake at first glance and must be a real person”, or the careful people who think they've found “the key points” like “there's an ear contour, why cover it up if it's not a real person” and “there's a hole in the shoulder, obviously for the person inside to breathe”, or the ordinary on - lookers who ask the soul - stirring question “Does a robot need to wear underwear?”, it's hard to tell who really believes XPeng committed fraud and who is just following the trend and seeking attention.

For this reason, He Xiaopeng said that he “didn't sleep well all night”. The next morning, he released a one - take video to prove himself by unzipping the back of IRON to show its internal structure. But still, some people said that “the zipper wasn't fully unzipped” and “this robot isn't the same one that went on stage”.

Before the press conference of the extended - range version of XPeng X9 on the second day of the Technology Day, He Xiaopeng invited IRON again. In a live - broadcast, the staff cut open the leg clothing and muscle tissue of IRON, fully revealing its mechanical structure.

This process was full of the kind of tragedy like “Liuzi eating noodles” in Let the Bullets Fly. He Xiaopeng looked solemn, and his voice choked at times. Many XPeng employees also said that they “cried on the spot”. Although many netizens couldn't empathize, He Xiaopeng and the employees were undoubtedly sincere at that moment. The significance of IRON to them may have exceeded that of a friend and was more like a family member.

In XPeng's view, this forced self - verification is also a kind of sadness for Chinese technology. “If it were a foreign company that achieved this, people would think it was amazing, but when it's a Chinese company, people think it's a fraud.”

But in fact, with the rising national confidence, many Chinese people have already demystified the “foreign aura” in both the consumer and technology sectors. Starbucks is being forced into a corner by Luckin and Kudi, and Nike and Adidas are finding it harder and harder to gain an edge over Anta and Li - Ning. Facing Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and VIVO, Apple's huge advantage in the Chinese market is gradually being eroded. Not to mention Samsung, which has left the market. Tesla is strong, but Leapmotor can sell more than 70,000 vehicles a month.

In the field of robots, Tesla's “Optimus” also faced extensive doubts from netizens about “remote control” before.

Therefore, rather than saying that the public doubts the capabilities of Chinese technology companies, it's more that the public has not yet established a high - threshold perception of robots. The impression of “rigid tools” far outweighs that of “highly bionic”. When faced with performances beyond common sense, the public's natural reaction is often to suspect “fraud” rather than believe in technological breakthroughs.

In addition, IRON's relatively smooth movements and realistic appearance also triggered the “uncanny valley effect” among some netizens, leading to strong suspicions of a real person inside a shell.

XPeng may not have failed to recognize this. Instead, it used the situation to its advantage and provided a textbook - level public relations response. Therefore, some people commented that “XPeng is a genius at feigning ignorance”. This is not a derogatory comment on XPeng. As a large - scale enterprise, doing the right thing is always the top priority. XPeng's actions successfully caught the huge wave of traffic and perfectly converted it into public attention.

According to the latest revelation from Zhou Hengxing, the founder of the international media Pandaily, Elon Musk also liked the video about XPeng's robot, saying that “Tesla and Chinese companies will dominate the market”.

However, the public's doubts have indeed exposed to some extent XPeng's “insufficient trust credit”. This enterprise, which always regards technology as its core, has not been very successful in establishing the image of a leader in the public's mind, whether in intelligent driving or the robot field. This is a problem that XPeng needs to continuously study and solve.

On the other hand, for the entire industry, this is also an opportunity, especially for the Chinese supply chain. For example, IRON uses all - solid - state batteries, which may lead to the mass production of this new thing earlier than in new - energy vehicles - an important prerequisite for commercialization is the coordinated evolution of the industrial chain.

Generally speaking, XPeng is showing a state of co - existence of radicalness and conservatism in the robot field.

The radical aspect lies in the “great - leap - forward” goal of “striving to achieve mass production and delivery by the end of next year”. For this purpose, XPeng has changed the industry convention of “technology first, scenario later” and uses the “reverse logic” of defining products by scenarios to promote the rapid implementation of IRON. The main application scenarios of IRON will be “three guiding services” - guiding tours, guiding shopping, and guiding patrols. Although this is “not very high - tech” and some people think that robots that cannot be targeted at consumers cannot be truly commercialized, XPeng's choice is undoubtedly a very practical solution at present.

This is also a helpless move. He Xiaopeng mentioned that if IRON were to work in a factory screwing bolts, the high wear and tear caused by frequent operations would require a replacement of its hands every few months, and the cost of one replacement “could hire a human worker for several years”. In the home scenario, IRON is still far from being able to solve the problem of general adaptability, and “no company in the world can guarantee safety issues”.

The conservative aspect is that the publicity scope and depth of new fields such as robots are far less than those of automotive and intelligent driving products. This may be a sign of lack of confidence or a more cautious attitude towards new species, that is, announcements will only be made after relatively certain results are achieved.

It's no longer appropriate in the current market environment to have ten times the ability but only talk about three times. But it's even more inappropriate to have only three times the ability but do ten times the publicity.

For XPeng, this is a greater test of “balancing ability”. On the one hand, XPeng needs to replicate the “wolfishness” in the automotive product competition to the robot field and continuously increase market education and user popularization. On the other hand, XPeng needs to consider how to avoid the backlash of user trust caused by the chronic problems in the automotive industry. To some extent, it's because car companies have made too many exaggerated claims that netizens tend to doubt everything first. Previously, the strong creativity of car companies in terms like L2.5, L2.9, and quasi - L3 forced the regulatory authorities to intervene.

This is the responsibility that XPeng, as a leader in the field, should shoulder and the tone it must set for the industry. The key is to be objective and honest. New progress and breakthroughs should be openly announced, but results that have not been fully verified need to be treated with extreme caution.

The robot industry has reached the inflection point of “trust calibration”. If it can force enterprises to publicly demonstrate the operation of core mechanical structures and key data when launching high - freedom, highly bionic products, the result may be much more convincing than relying solely on videos. It will also allow real - strength engineering players to break through more quickly and accelerate the elimination of PPT - type players.

This article is from the WeChat official account “guangzi0088” (ID: TMTweb), written by Xu Zhi, and is published by 36Kr with authorization.