Xpeng Aeroht breaks ground on its ‘flying car’ factory

Xpeng Aeroht, the flying car subsidiary of Chinese EV manufacturer Xpeng, has started constructing a new factory in Guangzhou to produce its modular flying car. The company plans to build 10,000 of the actual aircraft components here, an eVTOL (Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing) drone-like two-seater.

The three-axle parent vehicle that carries and recharges the eVTOL, the ‘Land Aircraft Carrier’ (LAC), will be built in one of Xpeng’s car factories. Pre-sales of the modular flying car, which will retail at under two million yuan (€260,000), start at the end of 2024, with mass production and deliveries beginning in 2026.

3,000 intended purchase orders

A few days after the presentation at the beginning of September, Xpeng Aeroht claimed it had already received over 3,000 intended purchase orders. However, Xpeng’s modular flying car has yet to make its first public human-crewed flight at the Zhuhai Airshow on November 12. It will be showcased at the Guangzhou auto show from 15 to November 24.

The new plant will have its first prototype off the production line by July 31, 2025. But Xpeng Aeroht’s ambitions are sky-high. According to its founder and president, Zhao Deli, Xpeng Aeroht hopes to deliver more eVTOLs than all other manufacturers of ‘flying cars’ worldwide combined.

Xpeng Aeroht was founded in 2013 and is majority-owned by Xpeng and its chairman and CEO, He Xiaopeng. The modular flying car the company intends to build in the new factory is actually its sixth project. A previous patent for an actual car with foldable rotors fixed on the roof proved technically too difficult, hence the dual solution of today.

Land Aircraft Carrier and charging hub

The rolling component, the Land Aircraft Carrier, is a boxy three-axle six-by-six all-wheel drive that is 5.5 meters long, two meters wide, and two meters high. It is an EREV (Extended Range EV) based on an 800V platform with a combined (CLTC) range of over 1,000 km.

The eVTOL is purely electric and can be charged by the carrier from 30 to 80% in 18 minutes. It should be able to do five to six manned or fully automated flights at one charge, but the actual aircraft specs are scarce for now.