XPENG Names Its Robotaxi "YOYO," Opens Public Registration in China

XPENG has put a name on its autonomous ride-hailing vehicle: YOYO. Alongside the brand reveal, the company switched on public registration for rides in China through invitation codes and published a dedicated page on its official site — a step it frames as the shift from technical validation into marketization and industrialization.

The hardware and software stack behind YOYO is entirely XPENG’s own. Each vehicle carries four in-house Turing AI chips rated at 3,000 TOPS, which the company says is the highest in-vehicle compute available today. Rather than leaning on high-definition maps or LiDAR, the robotaxi runs XPENG’s VLA2.0 large model, an approach the automaker argues lets it deploy quickly across different cities and environments. XPENG describes the path as bridging L2 driver assistance and L4 autonomy, and says it differs fundamentally from how traditional L4 developers operate. It also calls YOYO China’s first fully in-house developed robotaxi to reach “pre-loaded mass production” — meaning core software and hardware are flashed and integrated on the factory line rather than retrofitted afterward.

The timeline has moved quickly through 2026. A mass-produced robotaxi rolled off the line in Guangzhou in May, and by July it had completed the full chain from ride-hailing to automated pickup and drop-off. In August, XPENG secured Guangzhou’s remote testing qualification for intelligent connected vehicles, allowing road tests without a safety operator in the driver’s seat on Class I, II, and III test roads. Before opening registration, the company ran paid internal testing at just 1 renminbi per ride, mainly to validate payment flows and service workflows. Access is now widening from employees to outside users.

On the passenger side, XPENG has layered in comfort features: riders can preset cabin temperature and switch on the fragrance system before boarding, while zero-gravity seats, massage functions and a large entertainment screen with integrated content services aim to push autonomy beyond simply reaching a destination.

The name itself was picked deliberately. XPENG says “YOYO” was chosen for global brand recognition — short, easy to pronounce, and consistent across language environments — as the robotaxi business looks toward international markets. Visually, the vehicle reads as a slightly sportier take on a boxy electric SUV, with styling that invites comparison to the Kia EV9.