Originally published 2021-10-27.
In October 2021, Xpeng, the Guangzhou-based electric car maker, announced that its flying-car affiliate HT Aero had raised about $500 million and that it planned to put a road-capable flying car into mass production in 2024, at a price reported to be around $150,000. Alongside the plan, the company was already test-flying the X2, a two-seat electric aircraft that takes off and lands vertically. The 2024 date slipped, and the project changed shape, but Xpeng remains one of the most serious contenders in the race to turn "flying cars" into real products.
This guide explains what Xpeng actually showed in 2021, how the X2 differs from the drivable flying car it promised, what has happened since, and the practical questions that still stand between these machines and everyday travel.
What Xpeng announced in 2021
The announcement came at Xpeng's annual technology event in October 2021. Founder and chairman He Xiaopeng presented flying vehicles as part of a wider strategy that also included driver-assistance software and robotics, arguing that the company's push for smarter, safer and carbon-neutral mobility went far beyond electric cars.
HT Aero (later rebranded Xpeng AeroHT) began life in 2013 as an independent start-up in Dongguan. Xpeng invested in 2020, and in October 2021 the unit announced a funding round of roughly half a billion dollars. HT Aero said its next design would be able to drive on ordinary roads and fly at low altitude, with rotors that fold away for driving, and that it aimed to begin mass production in 2024.
The X2: an aircraft rather than a car
Many reports at the time blurred two different vehicles. The X2, which was already flying, is not driven on roads. It is an electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL), essentially a large passenger drone with an enclosed two-seat cabin and a carbon-fibre body.
Published specifications give it a maximum take-off weight of 760 kg, an empty weight of 560 kg, a top speed of about 130 km/h and a flight time of around 35 minutes. It carries a whole-airframe parachute and is designed for autonomous flight along pre-planned routes. On 10 October 2022 the X2 made its first public flight outside China, at Skydive Dubai during the Gitex technology show, where an Xpeng executive repeated the target of mass production and delivery in 2024.
(The video originally embedded here is no longer available on YouTube.)
The road-capable design that HT Aero promised was a separate concept. That distinction matters, because a vehicle that must work both as a road car and as an aircraft faces much harder engineering and regulatory hurdles than a pure eVTOL.
What happened after 2024
The 2024 target was missed. Instead, AeroHT developed a different idea that it calls the "Land Aircraft Carrier": a six-wheeled, range-extended electric van that carries a small single-seat eVTOL in its rear compartment. The driver travels by road, parks in an open space, and the aircraft deploys for short flights before returning to the vehicle to recharge.
The company has said the package should start at under about $280,000. In March 2024 the aircraft received airworthiness approval from a regional office of China's civil aviation regulator, and it later obtained type certification. By May 2025 the regulator had accepted AeroHT's application for a production certificate, and the factory was reported to be about 70% complete. Scaled production, first planned for 2025, was moved to 2026, with deliveries in China. Even then, carrying paying passengers requires further airworthiness and operator certificates.
How Xpeng compares with rival projects
Xpeng was not the first company to promise a flying car. Slovakia's AeroMobil flew a road-and-air prototype in 2015, and Japan's SkyDrive has spent years developing a compact eVTOL aimed at air-taxi services. Many Western start-ups, such as Joby Aviation and Archer, have chosen an air-taxi model in which professional pilots fly passengers between fixed landing pads.
Price has been one of Xpeng's selling points. When it announced its plans, the reported target was far below the $500,000 or more that many observers expected early flying cars to cost. Xpeng also builds mass-market electric cars and is often described as one of Tesla's competitors in China, which gives it manufacturing experience and a customer base that most aviation start-ups lack.
The practical questions still unanswered
The biggest obstacles for flying cars are less about engineering and more about where and how they can be used:
- Licensing. Today, piloting any aircraft requires training and certification. Autonomous flight may change this, but regulators have not yet approved private, self-flying passenger aircraft over cities.
- Where to take off and land. eVTOLs need clear, approved sites. A carrier vehicle solves part of this problem by bringing the aircraft to open land, but not to a city centre.
- Battery limits. Flight times of 20 to 35 minutes leave little margin, which restricts range and weather tolerance.
- Noise and safety. Communities will have to accept low-flying aircraft overhead, and every incident will be closely scrutinised.
- Cost. Even at $150,000 to $280,000, these are luxury purchases rather than mass transport.
That is why early uses are likely to be leisure flights in open areas, tourism, and possibly air-taxi routes, rather than commuters hopping over traffic jams.
What a flying-car announcement really tells you
When a company names a production year and a price, it is describing an ambition, not a guarantee. Xpeng's story shows how these plans evolve: a two-seat aircraft became a demonstrator, a promised drivable flying car became a car that carries an aircraft, and the timeline moved by at least two years. Certification milestones are the most reliable signal to watch. A vehicle that holds type, production and operator certificates is close to market; one that has only flown at a trade show is not.
If Xpeng does start deliveries in China, it will be among the first companies to sell a personal flying vehicle at scale, and its experience will show whether the idea can move from spectacle to something people actually use.
Sources: Wikipedia: XPeng; Khaleej Times, 10 October 2022: Flying car takes off in Dubai; Electrek, 9 May 2025: Xpeng AeroHT's Land Aircraft Carrier hits certification milestone. Story first shared via Business Insider and Hindustan Times reporting.
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