doing something more meaningful than working on a web browser says he now 41while accepting hes resignation in may 2017 alibaba ceo daniel zhang insisted on investing in xpeng two weeks later he struck a deal over breakfast at alibaba executive vice chairman joseph tsais hong kong home alibaba would become xpengs secondlargest shareholder and tsai would join the boardchinas tech titans have insatiable appetites for data on where drivers go which routes they take where they shop and how they pay xpengs cars utilize alibaba maps and other software though xpeng created its own operating system for faster overtheair updates like the iphone cars will be another connected platform to sell music mapping and services and collect driver data foo saysalibabas rivals are making similar bets tencent holdings ltd purchased 5 per cent of tesla for 18 billion in march 2017 the parent company of wechat also backs nio which filed confidentially for a us initial public offering people with knowledge of the matter said earlier this year tencent also placed a bet on wm motor which said in december it had raised 12 billion yuan from investors including baidu capitalxpeng which has 1800 employees conserved its initial financing thanks to national and local support for land office space and production facilities the company used that cash for research and development spending heavily in its earliest days to buy and disassemble two dozen tesla lexus and bmw vehicles it also poached a tesla autopilot engineer gu junli to oversee an 100employee autonomous driving and ai operation in mountain view california a hardware engineer poached from apple inc zhang xiaolang was arrested on charges of stealing driverless car research last week at san jose international airport before boarding a flight bound to china xpeng denies receiving any sensitive information from apple and says it has terminated zhangby october 2017 xpeng manufactured a batch of suvs named david 10 instead of opening public sales xpeng gave away or leased the 400 cars to employees who sent daily reports on technology glitches manufacturing mishaps and design suggestions the early feedback included requests to fashion more comfortable seatsits common to release software with bugs but with cars its hard to come back if customers dont like your first one he saysthat all led to januarys consumer electronics show in las vegas where xpeng revealed its first car for sale a cherryred g3 with autonomous parking a smartphone app to unlock the car and a 360degree camera ascending from the roof by late november xpeng plans to start delivering some of the 4000 preordered g3 cars to enthusiasts plunking down nonrefundable deposits the cars will cost from 200000 to 280000 yuan before subsidies kick inxpeng is contracting production to haima automobile group co in zhengzhou plans call for a third model a sedan with a bigger chassis to be created in xpengs own facility under construction in zhaoqinghe acknowledges the considerable odds facing xpeng even with the support of chinas tech giants and government