► We get to grips with XPeng’s flying car spin-off brand
► It already has two products on its roadmap – both terrifying
► One’s a short-range manned drone, the other’s a VTOL craft
Flying cars have long been a bit of a joke. Until now, they’ve been the reserve of cartoons such as the Jetsons and big-budget blockbusters like Star Wars, operating as cool plot devices to signal a civilisation vastly technologically superior to our own.
I figured I’d never see them in commercial use during my lifetime. But He Xiaopeng, CEO of the Chinese car maker XPeng, has spotted some serious potential. He reckons it’s a trillion-dollar industry in potentia that could result in flying cars accounting for 20% of the market within the next 20 years. That works out to four million ‘cars’ in China alone.
So, to capitalise on this boom, he’s thrown a load of money at a company called Aridge who’s laid out an aggressive three-step plan to get this flying car concept off the ground.
Aridge has been quietly beavering away on proof-of-concept tests since it was formed in 2013. The firm achieved its first successful flight in 2018 with a vehicle that looked like a motorcycle chassis strapped to four giant fans – and, since then, it’s designed and flown a handful of drone-inspired prototypes, such as the Traveller T1, X1 and X2.
But now it has the financial backing of China’s Elon Musk, Aridge is thinking commercially rather than conceptually. Step one of its grand plan is to launch the Land Aircraft Carrier (pictured below). It’s a pure-electric MPV with a deployable, battery-powered, AI-driven, manned drone mounted in its boot. It’s basically Thunderbird 2 and Thunderbird 4.
The idea is that you drive out to the countryside with a few mates, pitch up with a picnic and few drinks, and spend an afternoon buzzing around your favourite scenery, nipping back to the van for a jolt of power when your quadcopter runs low.
As appealing as that concept sounds, it’s not without its limitations. The copter can only reach an altitude of around 120 metres and it only has a flight time of about 20 minutes. Despite this, Aridge tells me it’s had loads of interest. Zhongkai He, the firm’s International Communications Manager, told me he’s already received 7000 orders for the Land Aircraft Carrier, despite the fact it hasn’t even passed type approval.
But with prices starting from the equivalent of £200,000, I can understand why. That’s quite aggressive when you compare it to the half a million pounds or more you’ll spend on a good helicopter – not least because you’re getting two vehicles for the price of one from Aridge.
Once sales of the Land Aircraft carrier are underway, Aridge will steam in with step two of its plan – the A868J (pictured below). The company insists on calling it a ‘flying car,’ but it looks more like a sci-fi VTOL craft from the Marvel Avengers franchise to my eye. In any case, it’s important because it differs in focus.
Instead of being just a rich person’s weekend toy, the A868J is being designed to work. Aridge claims it’ll be able to cover up to 500km (310 miles) at a maximum speed of 360km/h (224mph), thanks to a massive battery pack and a petrol range-extender.
The A868J has already completed its take-off and landing tests, and Aridge is planning to benchmark its long-distance flight capability in 2026. If all goes well, I’m told it’ll be on sale to normal folk like you and me within the next three to four years.
Once the A868J is out of the way, Aridge will focus on combining flight and driving in the same vehicle. It’s already dabbled in the space with efforts such as the eVTOL concept pictured below, but Tan Wang, Aridge’s co-founder, vice president and chief designer, admits he’s still limited by the technology of his time.
‘We call it dead weight,’ he said. ‘For instance, the suspension of the car, the big wheels – it looks cool but it cannot support lift power for flying. According to the density of the battery currently, it can fly maybe three to five minutes. That cannot be a successful product. But this is more towards the future.
‘The first step is a modular flying car [the Land Aircraft Carrier], the second step is the tilted rotor flying car [the A868J] with 500km of range, and the third one is what we call the eVTOL flying car. It will come true someday. But today, by the boundary of the technology, we cannot make it a very good product.’
This can’t be… legal? Can it?
The waters are still quite murky. There currently isn’t any legislation to allow a consumer to operate an AI-driven, autonomous-capable, battery-powered light aircraft such as this – but Aridge is working with legislators to define a new category in which it’ll sit.
Aridge’s argument is that its product requires minimal input from the human pilot. Indeed, the controls are surprisingly simple, stretching to a single joystick with a scroll wheel for the craft’s bearing and altitude. It can even pilot itself autonomously. Tan Wang said: ‘in three minutes you can learn [to fly it], and in one hour you can master.’
So, in theory, you shouldn’t need a full pilot’s licence to operate it, as the AI is functioning as the qualified pilot. You’re merely a passenger offering suggestions on what you’d like to see. Aridge hasn’t won the battle yet, though – and it’s worth mentioning that it’s only grappling with legislators China and the Middle East for the time being. It’s going to have a completely different fight on its hands when it tries to break Europe.
What if it all goes pear shaped?
I was concerned about that, too. In a conventional aircraft, catastrophic engine failure isn’t as dangerous as it sounds. Aeroplanes can glide, and helicopters can autorotate to slow their descent and save their passengers. But Aridge’s flying cars have neither wings nor free-spinning propellers – so if something breaks, they’ll just drop out of the sky like stones.
To try and mitigate that, Aridge has developed a pathological obsession for redundant systems. For example, the flying bit of the Land Aircraft Carrier has 255kWh of battery capacity – but it’s not all stored in one big unit. The pack is split in half, so if some of the cells in half of the battery fail, you’ll still have enough power for an emergency landing.
Apparently, the craft can also stay airborne with just four of its six rotors spinning – and it doesn’t matter which ones let go. XPeng’s flight AI can automatically compensate for the missing power by adjusting the speed of remaining fans to keep you stable and airborne.
Even the controls have built-in redundancies. If the joystick in the centre of the cabin breaks, for example, there’s a row of Nintendo-style buttons that provide just enough control over the rotors to get you back on terra firma.
Tan Wang touched on the probability of accidents with traditional aircraft, saying: ‘compared with the commercial airbus – such as Boeing – we cannot reach that level. But compared with the helicopter, we are high.’
I wasn’t happy with that explanation, though, especially considering how many rock gods we’ve lost to helicopter crashes. So, I pushed for more info. It turns out, Aridge has also designed a last-ditch safety system in case of irrevocable electronic failure. It’s planned for the A868J – and it teams a series of parachutes with a massive airbag underneath the craft to cushion your fall.
Tan Wang showed me a video of the technology being benchmarked (which I’m sadly not allowed to share) and, while it certainly looked like an uncomfortable landing, it seemed survivable. The video didn’t end with Aridge scraping its prototype off the floor with a fish slice, which is always a good start.
Keep pushing boundaries, XPeng. Just don’t ask me to get in a prototype.