Bernstein Reaffirms $21 Price Target on XPeng
Bernstein analyst Eunice Lee reiterated on November 6, 2025, a ‘Market Perform’ rating and $21 price target on XPeng.
“XPeng held its 2025 AI Day today, showcasing the latest progress in its ADAS technology and unveiling the product launch roadmap for its robotaxis, humanoids, and eVTOLs.
Our thoughts – XPeng’s Advantages and Challenges in Robotaxi
XPeng’s robotaxi advantage lies in lower manufacturing costs and larger-scale data collection compared to competitors like Waymo, Baidu Apollo (NC), Pony AI (NC), and WeRide (NC).
We estimate XPeng could lower manufacturing costs to below RMB 200k per vehicle, benefiting from in-house production, in-house AI chips, and a vision-only approach without LiDAR, similar to Tesla (NC).
By contrast, Waymo’s robotaxi is estimated to cost around US$100k (approximately RMB 700k), Pony RMB 300k, and Apollo RMB 245k.
XPeng’s existing large fleet on the road also provides a data advantage crucial for optimizing autono mous driving software.
Challenges include the technological leap from Level 2+ (driver-assisted) to Level 4 (fully driverless), requiring significant redundnacy threshold and safety validation.
Achieving network effect is also challenging in a market where Didi (NC) holds about 70% share in ride-hailing, though XPeng’s partnership with Amap will be helpful.
While mass production of robotaxis is planned for 2026, it will be followed by licensing and safety mileage accumulation before fully driverless operation licenses can be granted, likely in 2027 or later.
Hence, we don’t expect any material boost to XPeng’s financials in the next 12-24 months.
With that said, we recognize this development is a strong showcase of XPeng’s technological capabilities and could help enhance XPeng’s brand.”
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