XPeng owns a flying-car company. It also builds robots and robotaxis, but its core business is electric cars that can steer, park and change lanes with software written in-house. The Guangzhou company was six years old when it went public in New York in August 2020. Tesla's stock was soaring, and investors were hunting for the Chinese electric carmakers that might follow. XPeng arrived weeks after its rival Li Auto, and raised $1.5 billion.

An Internet Founder Bets on Cars

Xia Heng and He Tao started XPeng in Guangzhou in August 2014. He Xiaopeng, who had sold his mobile browser company to Alibaba, backed them early and became chairman. The company carries his name. The bet was that a car could be a computer first. XPeng put its engineers on driver-assist software, voice control and over-the-air updates. It opened offices in Mountain View, California, and later Munich, to hire engineers for that work.

A 41 Percent First Day

XPeng priced its American depositary shares at $15 on August 26, 2020, above its planned range. The shares opened at $23.10 and closed the first day at $21.22, up 41 percent. In 2021 it added a listing in Hong Kong. Volkswagen bought a 4.99 percent stake in 2023 for $700 million. In 2025 XPeng delivered 429,445 cars and posted its first quarterly profit. It still trades in New York and Hong Kong.

Cover: The Kite, Donald Shaw MacLaughlan. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a kite in flight (flying cars, lift-off).