For decades humans have been dreaming of taking their cars to the sky. The roots of such a concept can be traced back to the late 1800s and early 1900s, but despite many trying and several seemingly great ideas coming to light, flying cars never came to pass.
Until now, that is, when the rise of drones and other multi-rotor devices are making a variation of the concept increasingly possible. Sure, one could argue that the VTOLs currently being researched and (some) advertised as flying cars are not exactly that - because most of them can’t be driven and then flown directly from the road, and still need at least air pads and in some cases even trained pilots - but still…
One company trying to go for a combination between a VTOL and an actual car is Chinese Xpeng. Its website lists three products at the moment, the T1 (shown in 2019), X1 (2020), and X2 (2021). This year, Xpeng presented the X3 as “the world’s first fully electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) flying car.”
None of them are actually real-world products, sold and used, but that doesn’t mean the company is in this game just for the kicks of it. On the contrary, it’s hard at work testing the systems it will use, as seen in the most recent video it released (attached below).
We get point-of-view footage of an undisclosed Xpeng product (the unprotected frame of it, to be fair) in 360 degrees, accompanied by a lot of noise coming from the rotors (here’s to hoping the end product will be quieter), and a very surreal feeling this might just be the future of transportation.
The company calls the experience driving, although it’s probably more akin to piloting, and the thing used for the test a flying car, although this term does not seem accurate in this case either.
Xpeng does not provide any details as to where or when the test flight took place, nor do we get any indication as to when one of its so-called flying cars will get here.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
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