Following XPeng’s recent 1024 Tech Day event in China earlier this week, we were finally able to share video footage of its latest generation eVTOL built by AeroHT. As promised during the presentation, XPeng’s flying car prototype has completed its maiden flight and has the receipts to prove it. You must see this.
Earlier this week, we delivered a recap of XPeng’s annual 1024 Tech Day, where the company showcases new and upcoming products and services, while teasing some of the advanced technologies it’s developing for the future. For a second consecutive year, XPeng’s urban air mobility (UAM) division, AeroHT, stole the show with its prototype flying car.
The unique eVTOL that can drive on roads and navigate through the air was first unveiled at XPeng’s 1024 Tech Day in 2021, which featured stylish renders and an animated video. This year’s presentation included information that the XPeng AeroHT team had upgraded the sixth-generation eVTOL design from a horizontal twin-rotor structure to a new distributed multi-rotor configuration.
The company also said that the overall design complexity of the eVTOL system has been reduced to ensure better safety and reliability during flights. Even better, a prototype had been built and made its maiden flight. Naturally, we were eager to see this footage, but it was shared at the end of the Tech Day presentation in China, and we had to wait for the entire video to be translated into English and released.
In the meantime, we’ve shared a cool video of XPeng’s latest flying car in action, but again these were animated renders and not the real thing. Today though, we got our hands on footage of the maiden flight, and it’s unlike anything we’ve seen before, though not without its journalistic skepticism and future safety concerns. Check it out below.
Watch XPeng’s flying car take off, fly and land
As promised, we were able to track down and share footage of the flying car theft, right at the end of XPeng’s translated Tech Day presentation. There are plenty of other cool technologies on the way from this Chinese automaker, so we recommend checking out the full presentation if you have the time.
Anyway, back to the flight. As you’ll soon see, the prototype flying car rolls over a tarmac, engages its propellers and lifts off vertically as the XPeng AeroHT team looks on eagerly. The flying car doesn’t move too much, but it does reach a decent height before descending back to Earth and sticking its landing, thanks to the vehicle’s suspension and tires.
Watch the video below and let’s talk about it. Does this seem legit to you? Is this the future of mobility at the The Jetsons? Or are we on the fast track to getting our heads cut off?
Electrek’s Grasp
These images are as frightening and disturbing as they are exciting and awe-inspiring. XPeng and AeroHT could have pulled off this flying car video in many ways, perhaps using a lighter vehicle or cardboard parts. But in my interactions with the team and its engineers, that doesn’t seem to be their style. He Xiaopeng is no Trevor Milton, and AeroHT is something he has personally invested in, in addition to funding XPeng Inc.
However viable this flying car is, there’s no denying that we’ve never seen anything like it before. UAM continues to grow and get closer to reality every day with eVTOLs designed more like airplanes than anything else, but XPeng has combined a car. A flying car.
At its very core, the mere fact that XPeng and AeroHT were able to imagine a flying car like this, assemble a prototype, and get it into the air is to be applauded. Even if it doesn’t make it into a production-scale vehicle, its challenge to the status quo and proving what’s possible is perhaps worth more. We need more of that kind of thinking and tinkering there.
Obviously there are major safety issues regarding propellers, and it would take some serious regulations and safe practices before this becomes a viable mobility segment, but it’s the boring stuff that’s a lot easier than building a vehicle that can drive, retract the propellers, and take off into the air. Reread this sentence. What a time to live.
XPeng and AeroHT are a far cry from the beautiful render you see in the image above, but by developing and testing this flying car with video proof, they are arguably closer to delivering one than anyone else. ‘other. You just can’t kick people for trying. They should be celebrated.
FTC: We use revenue-generating automatic affiliate links. After.
Subscribe to Electrek on YouTube for exclusive videos and subscribe to the podcast.
#Check #video #footage #XPeng #AeroHTs #flying #car #performing #maiden #flight