Xpeng Aeroht, a subsidiary of Chinese energy vehicle startup Xpeng Motors, has secured $150 million in a Series B1 financing round to develop a flying car.
The firm has also immediately initiated its Series B2 funding round to construct the world’s first assembly line for large-scale production of flying cars in the Guangzhou Development District. The facility will first be used for the production of the air module of Xpeng’s modular flying car, “Land Aircraft Carrier”.
The “Land Aircraft Carrier” consists of two modules: a ground one and an air one. They can autonomously separate and combine. The ground module can house the air module and drive on the road. It can seat 4-5 passengers and has a range-extended electric drive system to recharge the air module multiple times.
The air module, in its turn, can perform vertical takeoff and landing. It features a distributed electric propulsion system, offers manual and autonomous driving modes and has a 270° panoramic dual-seat cockpit.
The vehicle has a three-axle, six-wheel design for 6×6 all-wheel drive and rear-wheel steering. Pre-sales are expected to begin in Q4, 2024 in China.
Xpeng Aeroht’s modular flying car officially had its Type Certificate (TC) application accepted by the Civil Aviation Administration of Central and Southern China (CAAC) in March and entered the airworthiness certification phase.
The company has developed an ultra-low-altitude multi-parachute rescue system for flight safety. Besides, Xpeng claims that its five previous generations of flying cars have completed nearly 20,000 flight tests to prepare for the ultimate modular flying car “Land Aircraft Carrier” launch.
The firm is currently expanding its nationwide flight application network, having signed nearly 60 flying car camps with safe and compliant flying spaces, including general aviation airports, scenic spots, cultural and tourism towns, and urban suburbs.
There are dozens of startups and subsidiaries of well-established businesses working on electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicles, popularly called flying cars, worldwide. Even major aviation companies like Boeing and Airbus have been developing eVTOL models. However, none of them have gotten fully off the ground so far.
Moreover, even the autonomous vehicle market which has been in development for decades now is far from reaching its full potential or becoming commonplace.
