XPeng has begun road testing the sixth prototype of its Alibaba-backed flying car concept. Founded in 2013, XPeng Heitech is a company that develops flying cars. The goal of the company is to market the flying cars in 2024, with a price of 135,000 euros. The Chinese company, a fierce competitor of Tesla, is one of the major players in the nascent flying car market.
From 2016 till 2021, XPeng presented five models of its flying cars. But most of the cars don’t look like actual passenger vehicles as they haven’t got wheels or a traditional body shape. They look more like remote-controlled drones with seats.
The sixth generation of the XPeng flying car that the company started testing in China is going to change it. The sixth car model looks more real. It looks exactly like a car with a heavy-duty top box (the rotor casings feature) on the roof.
What we see as a flying car is not a flying machine, it should be a smart electric car in the city and a low-altitude flying vehicle in the suburbs.
He Xiaopeng, XPeng Motors CEO
The new Xpeng sixth prototype looks like a heavily modified version of the sporty XPeng P7 with a few modifications. The front wheels have been moved forward, giving the car a longer wheelbase, and the shock absorbers appear stronger. The car has also a rotor casing on the roof that holds in the rotors. The casing helps prevent damage to the rotors when they’re not in use, addressing one of the main challenges of designing flying cars.
