On November 21, Li Auto, showcasing its entire product line, announced the latest advancements in driver assistance technology and its OTA upgrade plan at the Guangzhou Auto Show. The company introduced innovative features such as VLA charging and defensive AES automatic emergency steering, while also promoting the democratization of NOA (Noise, Auto, and Aid) functionality in urban areas, attempting to solidify its market position through the widespread adoption of its technology.
The highlight of this demonstration is the expansion of the capabilities of the VLA driver big data model. Since its release in August 2025 and its full rollout to AD Max users in September, the model has accumulated over 312 million kilometers of driving mileage to date.
Based on this model's spatial understanding and the integrated capabilities of its vehicle-charging-station-cloud system, Li Auto has launched the VLA charging function, which enables vehicles to autonomously drive into supercharging stations, automatically find available charging piles, complete assisted parking and password-free payment, and finally autonomously drive away, thus solving the "last 100 meters" problem of charging. This function is planned to cover the first batch of over 1,400 Li Auto supercharging stations in January 2026, with coverage exceeding 2,900 stations by March.
In the field of active safety, data released by Li Auto shows that as of November 20, its active safety system has cumulatively avoided 11.31 million potential collisions, prevented over 14,000 extreme accidents, and performed 2.08 million nighttime active avoidance maneuvers. The defensive AES automatic emergency steering function, soon to be rolled out to all AD Max users, upgrades safety protection from active collision avoidance to passive collision defense, capable of handling complex and dangerous scenarios such as American-style stop-and-go, malicious tailgating, and rear-end collisions.
In addition, Li Auto plans to push the City NOA function to the newly upgraded AD Pro model.
Li Auto also announced that subsequent OTA upgrades will simultaneously optimize the Smart Space and Smart Electric Platform. The Smart Space will add personalized features such as art frames, pet mode, and musician mode, while also integrating applications like KFC Quick Pickup and Soft Drink Music. Regarding Smart Electric, the range-extended models will add a winter smart charging preheating function, and the charging planning logic will be further optimized.
Fan Haoyu, Senior Vice President of Li Auto's Product Department, said that the VLA driver big model continues to evolve through reinforcement learning, and its spatial understanding ability has been extended to multiple scenarios such as parking and charging. In the future, it will continue to optimize the traffic experience in scenarios such as complex traffic light intersections and construction sections.
It is reported that Li Auto is building full-stack self-developed capabilities around core areas such as self-developed chips, intelligent operating systems, and assisted driving, aiming to become a world-leading artificial intelligence terminal company.
It's worth noting that while releasing a flurry of new technologies, Li Auto is facing intense market competition. At this year's Guangzhou Auto Show, brands such as Huawei's HarmonyOS and Leapmotor showcased intelligent driving hardware with higher computing power and extended-range products. Industry competition has shifted from a "battle of presence" to a "battle of the strong and the weak." The effectiveness of Li Auto's technology implementation and market feedback remain to be seen.
