Xpeng released modular flying car with first flight scheduled for November

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Xpeng AeroHT officially released its modular flying car. It consists of a land carrier and an aircraft. Its first public flight is scheduled for November this year. As for the market launch, the Xpeng modular flying car will start pre-sales later this year with a price tag of under 2 million yuan (280,000 USD). Deliveries are scheduled for 2026.

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Previous Xpeng’s flying cars didn’t look as real cars in any way

Xpeng AeroHT was founded in 2013 with financial support from Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng. This startup aims to develop a real flying car. However, its flying vehicles looked like everything but a car. In 2021, Xpeng AeroHT announced the 6-gen flying vehicle. They planned to make it a road-legal car with deployable rotors on the roof.

Last year Xpeng displayed a flying car prototype

However, it appeared that it is too difficult to lock rotors properly to prevent damage from vibrations when the car is driving on the road. So, Xpeng AehoHT has started over its flying car project with Land Aircraft Carrier. It was first announced in October 2023. Now, this modular car has made its live debut in China.

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More on Xpeng Land Aircraft Carrier

As mentioned, the Xpeng Land Aircraft Carrier consists of two main elements. The first one is the aircraft carrier. It is a large three-axle vehicle with a 5.5-meter length, 2-meter width, and 2-meter height. It keeps minimalistic styling with a blocky body shape and smooth A-pillars that merge into the roofline. The carrier has flush door handles and plastic trim in the lower part of the body. However, it has no side-view mirrors. So, this variant is still far from a production-ready vehicle.

According to Xpeng AeroHT, the aircraft carrier is EREV based on the 800V high-voltage platform. It has an internal combustion engine under the hood, which doesn’t transfer any torque to the wheels. Instead, it supplies power to electric motors and a battery pack. The mixed range of this carrier reaches 1,000 km (CLTC). Thanks to the 800V system, it can charge the aircraft from 30 to 80% in 18 minutes.

Speaking about the aircraft, it looks like a sizeable drone. It can automatically land and dock with the carrier. To fit the trunk of the carrier, it folds its rotors. On a full charge, the aircraft can support 5-6 flights. It supports two driving modes: manual and automatic.

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The Land Aircraft Carrier will perform its first public flight at the Zhuhai Air Show in November this year. It will start presales later this year with a price tag below 2 million yuan (280,000 USD). However, the mass production and deliveries of this modular car will start in 2026 because Xpeng AeroHT doesn’t even have an assembly plant. Its construction is scheduled for September 2024. The trial production will start in July 2025. The planned annual capacity is over 10,000 units.

Editor’s comment

It is worth mentioning that flying cars have no proper set of laws in any country. The future owners of the Land Aircraft Carrier will probably need to obtain a flight license as well to operate the aircraft. Low-altitude flights are said to be gradually liberalized in China. However, it is still hard to imagine that Xpeng AehoHT will find 10,000 customers who are ready to buy this vehicle and satisfy the company’s future plant’s production volume. It is an expensive niche product. So, the future of the Land Aircraft Carrier is foggy, but we hope it surprise us by turning into a successful project.

Source: Xpeng

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22 COMMENTS

  1. I admit I’m just as sceptical as the editor in his comment. Perhaps even more. Xpeng does a great job with it’s EV cars now, just look at ‘Mona’. Perhaps they should give their full attention to this, instead of wasting all the money, time and focus on the owners private fantasies? 40 – 50 years ahead, is too far to invest in, for a ‘fresh’ start up. My humble opinion anyway.

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  2. They should keep on developing bigger drone’s with more lifting capacity where it can be use in the agricultural secter for crop spaying , for fire fighting ext

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  3. Great innovation Chinese technology is here to save the world. This will easy transportation in many countries across the world especially those that has not developed the urban zipline transport system like Africa where traffic jam is a very huge problem even very rich people without private jets have to get stuck on the road for hours. Well done mr. CEO for this innovation.

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    • That a nice purchase I wish more people purchase and give this young company the boost and capital to start building there plant and getting ready for mass production because right now flying vehicles is what the world needs next to experience

  4. The word “car” comes from the word “carriage” which comes from the word “carry”. I don’t want to hear ever again “It doesn’t look like a car”. In any case, save your money for the Canadian version!!

  5. Flying car…. i love the innovation but flight license i don’t think regular drivers would be able to pass that pilot test a huge difference fron normal driving class….

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