International News

Chinese EV Maker Xpeng Touts Flying Car For 2024

Team Nepal Drives

October 27, 2021

XPeng affiliate HT Aero has unveiled an outrageous flying car design that it claims is "planned for roll-out in 2024."

HT Aero is the newly donned name of Xpeng Huitian, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Xpeng (Xiaopeng) Motors. Founded in 2013, HT Aero has conducted over 15,000 safe manned flights with the goal of combining automotive and aerospace technologies to develop safe, domestic electric flying vehicles at scale.

HT Aero’s vehicle will have a lightweight design and a rotor that folds away, the company said. That will allow the car to drive on roads and then fly once the rotors are expanded. The vehicle will have a number of safety features including parachutes, the company said. HT Aero is backed by Xpeng and its founder He Xiaopeng. The company raised $500 million last week from a number of outside investors including high-profile venture capital firms.

Xpeng is a seven-year-old Chinese electric car company that's growing fast, pulling in somewhere around US$2 billion in revenue this year and shipping somewhere around 50,000 cars. It's investing heavily in autonomy and charging infrastructure, while rolling out cars like the P7 that offer more range than Tesla's Model 3, at a cheaper price.