Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng posted a status on his WeChat friend circle today, seemingly in response to Tesla CEO Elon Musk's accusations of stealing his technology.

He Xiaopeng said Xpeng's announcement yesterday of a next-generation autopilot architecture that includes lidar seems to have "upset someone in the West.

"I would like to say that rumor-mongering has long proved that you can't beat any competitor," he wrote.

"Starting next year, in the Chinese autopilot field, you have to be prepared to be beaten by us to find out where the East is," he said, adding, "As for the international market, we will meet."

Xpeng yesterday unveiled its next-generation autopilot architecture that includes LIDAR, with plans to build the world's first production vehicle with such sensors. Musk, however, has said in the past that LIDAR is useless and would not be used even if it were free.

In an exchange with users on Twitter, Musk said, "They have an old version of our software & don't have our NN inference computer. "

This content is probably the direct reason for He Xiaopeng's statement today.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 20, 2020