The manufacturer Xpeng AeroHT, specialist in flying cars, has just unveiled its new model. The X3 is an authentic car on which the firm has added rotors to make it fly…
Even if the flying car is not yet a commercial reality, manufacturers are competing for ideas and there are a large number of prototypes that could come to fruition in the coming years. Most modify the shape of the car to make it easier to fly, and some models could even be driven on the road. Chinese manufacturer Xpeng AeroHT decided to take a different approach: sticking rotors on a standard car.
This is an eVTOL, or a aéronefaéronef with electric vertical take-off and landing (Adav). It’s an evolution of a car that the firm presented last year in a very different form (see our previous article below), with two rotors that fold entirely inside the car. This new version of the X3 has eight rotors that fold into a kind of very bulky roof box.
A successful first test flight
Given that this is a real electric car, the device is extremely heavy, weighing 1,936 kilos on the scale, almost four times the weight of the X2 model (560 kilos). The manufacturer did not share technical information on its new prototype, but indicates that it was designed for the flight as well as for the road.
This new model has already successfully completed its first flight, the video of which is available on YouTube. The current prototype has a very distinctive look and really looks like a tweaked car, but the firm has also released a render of what the final version should look like. It remains to be seen what the autonomy of this machine will be in the air and on the road, given its weight…
This flying car is coming in 2024
Article by Louis Neveu, published on October 25, 2021
HT Aero, the subsidiary of electric car manufacturer XPeng, has unveiled a pretty crazy flying car concept. This supercar with rotors could take both the road and theairair from 2024.
Here’s a pretty crazy flying car concept. It comes to combine an electric supercar reminiscent of a Bugatti, with two folding arms carrying propeller motors to fly. This concept is being developed by the subsidiary HTHT Aero from the Chinese company Xpeng. This parent company is an electric vehicle manufacturer seeking to position itself in the niche of Tesla, but with less expensive and more autonomous cars.
Xpeng is said to have sold 50,000 vehicles this year alone. Its subsidiary already has the ambition to make it run and fly from 2024. HT Aero is not at its first attempt. The subsidiary is also working on an aircraft called X2. It is a quadcopter similar to the Ehang taxi and can carry two people at a time. vitessevitesse 130 km/h for 35 minutes.
Here is a picture of the flying supercar concept that HT Aero intends to market within three years. © HT Aero
An ambitious concept
This time, HT Aero goes much further by mixing a real racing carracing car electricity with an aircraft capable of operating at low altitude. The vehicle relies on air thanks to its two pillars with large rotors. The latter can tilt independently, just like on the famous V-22 Osprey from Boeing-Bell. It remains to be seen what the performance will be in flight, since such an electric vehicle should weigh very heavy. Autonomy could therefore be quite limited. Another concern also, with only two rotors, the failure of one of them would have disastrous consequences.
Despite these constraints, HT Aero believes in it and therefore intends to fly and drive its racy car within three years. And the manufacturer would be wrong not to believe it, since it managed to collect half a billion dollars to implement this crazy project!
