ROME – Take a sports coupe like there are many on the market, mount a pair of propellers and as soon as you are ready take flight. Science fiction? Not exactly, as the first example will be delivered to customers in 2024.
The X2, the first electric hybrid flying car, is made by XPeng, an independent Chinese company of the Guangzhou Group. Unlike all the other eVTOLs, those kind of drones that take off and land vertically, the X2 is a real car capable of turning on the street and hovering in the sky if necessary. After presenting it in Stockholm at the eCar Expo event, at the Friends Arena, the parent company has now taken advantage of one of the most important Chinese fair events (the Guangdong-HongKong-Macao Greater Bay Area International Auto Show) that survived the restrictions from Covid for confirm the development of its flying car.
“It is the latest generation of our flying cars and is the most exciting product because it can travel on the road and fly in the sky,” explains He Xiaopeng, president of Xpeng. “He can easily switch modes, from driving on the road to driving in the sky. It will go into mass production soon and will be delivered to customers in 2024 ”.
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XPeng currently has a team of about 700 people working on the integration of air and land transport with the forecast of arriving by 2025-2030 at a first group of 50-100 large Chinese cities in which autonomous land driving (which Xpeng is also developing in GPS-free mode) can be integrated for travel up to 150-200 km with autonomous flight.
The X2 can carry two passengers and uses two propellers for the flight that are activated thanks to telescopic arms. When the car is in the street guise, the arms and propellers are hidden in a fairing on the rear sides. And in the event of a breakdown? No problem (so to speak): a safety system with parachute manages to bring the car back to the ground, complete with passengers inside.