“Let me show you a magic trick,” Wang Tan said to me. We were surrounded by throngs of onlookers at CES, all of them starting at the hulking gray-and-black van his company hopes to make a reality soon. “One, two, three.” And with a snap of his fingers, the rear section of the Land Aircraft Carrier opened up, revealing a folded-up flying machine tucked away inside.
If all goes according to plan—a wild, ambitious, nearly unbelievable plan even by the fanatical standards of CES—then about a year from now, people in China will be able to buy that six-wheeled electrified van, then take to the air in the electric vertical take-off-and-landing (eVTOL) craft that’s stored inside of it. It will be a go-anywhere, do-anything combination of vehicles. You can go camping or do some light off-roading in the van, and then go where no car could ever take you in its companion craft.
Tan is right when he calls it “magic.” Pulling off a car like that, if it can even still be called a car at this point, would be nothing less than an act of pure sorcery. Yet Tan said his venture, Xpeng AeroHT, says they’re committed to making it happen.
You can be forgiven for whatever skepticism you may be feeling right now. It’s certainly warranted. But the first word in that company’s name, Xpeng, has me keeping an eye on this airborne adventure.
Photo by: Xpeng
The Mothership And The Air Module
CES has been home to “flying car” hype since maybe always, and nobody’s pulled it off yet. That’s probably why the vehicle that drew the most attention was the van parked beside the aircraft. Xpeng AeroHT calls it the “Mothership,” and it makes a Tesla Cybertruck look almost subtle by comparison.
It’s big. Eighteen feet long, six-and-a-half feet tall and equally as wide. It rides on six wheels placed on three axles. The design is, by the company’s own admission, “inspired by what a Lunar Rover for Earth could look like.” Even with the aircraft in the back, the cabin seats four people (though the interior wasn’t part of the prototype display at CES.)
Photo by: Xpeng
Power goes to the wheels with an unspecified gasoline engine mated to a rather advanced powertrain system. The company claims it will be “the world’s first 800-volt silicon carbide range extension power platform,” adding an advanced electrical architecture and fast charging to a type of car that doesn’t often have it. The total range is said to be about 620 miles (1,000 km) albeit on China’s very optimistic CLTC testing cycle.
That powerplant is also responsible for charging the aircraft itself: the Air Module. Also built on an 800-volt electrical system, it has six rotors with foldable propellers and arms. The Mothership, on a full charge, can support up to six flights, although the eVTOL’s aerial range is unspecified.
But I would argue that the way it deploys out of the Mothership is the real party trick here. The roof of the van pops up and two rear doors swing open, while the aircraft moves forward and its legs drop to the ground. When both are in place, the van drives away and the eVTOL is ready to fly.
That, I did get to sit in. It’s a tight two-seat affair inside, not unlike crawling into a first-generation Mazda Miata. But Tan, himself a helicopter pilot, told me that its one-joystick setup makes the aircraft very easy to fly—even if it will be limited in China to people with relevant pilot’s licenses.
Photo by: Patrick George
“It takes 40 to 50 hours to learn how to pilot,” Tan said. “In this, with a couple of minutes, you can learn how to fly it.” Maybe so. The most fantastical part of the deal may be its autonomous capabilities: “automated route planning, real-time airspace monitoring and landing vision assistance,” the company claims. Given how limited we know automated driving assistance to be in the ground, I’m deeply skeptical of that part of things.
But that’s the thing here: all of what was shown off at CES is technically plausible—if far away from the realities on the ground, so to speak.
The price? According to past reports, around 2 million yuan, or about $275,000 at current exchange rates. Also hard to believe, but frankly, not bad for everything you get here. That’s only about $25,000 more than a Lucid Air Sapphire, which, at present, does not offer the option of flight.
What On Earth Is Xpeng AeroHT?
What’s more likely, even as Xpeng AeroHT claims that deliveries are planned for 2026, is that the company is demonstrating future technologies it’s working toward—as are many competitors in this space. Toyota is partnering with air taxi startup Joby, Hyundai has started an aerial division called Supernal and Stellantis is doing something similar with Archer Aviation. If aerial personal vehicles and taxis catch on, the big players don’t want to get left behind.
Photo by: Patrick George
That apparently includes Xpeng. Along with BYD, Li Auto, Nio and a few others, it’s one of the more prominent Chinese automakers to emerge in recent years. It’s also one that may be profitable on EV sales sometime in 2025. With offices in California and Germany as well as its Guangzhou headquarters, Xpeng clearly has global ambitions. Wherever it lands, it seems poised to do well. Its EVs are sleek and high-tech, so much so that Tesla’s updated Model Y has been accused of being an Xpeng copycat. Plus Xpeng is branching into the extended-range electric vehicle (EREV) game as well.
It’s clearly thinking about the future with Xpeng Aero HT, its aerospace affiliate. Aero HT started as a separate company back in 2013 but picked up an investment from Xpeng in 2020. They formed the new company together. It has since made several successful test flights and showed off the Air Module at CES last year. Now, having raised $150 million in Series B funding, it’s working on “the world’s first mass-production flying car factory with a modern assembly line” to build the Mothership and Air Module.
Photo by: Patrick George
There are other plans involved here too. Xpeng AeroHT says that Phase One is this vehicle; Phase Two is a high-speed, long-range aerial standalone craft and Phase Three is a full-blown eVTOL Flying Car with more derivatives along the way.
Photo by: Xpeng
Like I said: wild, ambitious and nearly unbelievable. And as TechCrunch noted, companies like Joby and Archer Aviation have each raised about $3 billion, so it’s going to need a ton more than it’s raised so far to make these dreams come true. But we’re seeing all of the time what Xpeng is up to on the electric vehicle side of things. These future-forward automakers don’t want to give up on the potential of electric aviation long term.
Who knows; maybe the van itself could become a reality, independent of that aircraft. It may be limited to the ground, but it’s still a magic trick in its own right.
33
Patrick George
Contact the author: [email protected]
