Chinese flying car could conquer the skies

XPeng Huitian, the Chinese division of XPeng Motors, has unveiled a prototype of its new flying car with autonomous capabilities. Dubbed the Voyager X2, the electric vehicle is the company’s fifth generation flying car, which it says takes it one step closer to a more widely available and safe flying car.

XPeng announced the pre-order availability of its new sedan model, the P5, at the Shanghai Motor Show earlier this year. In addition to the P5 electric vehicle, they also unveiled their fourth generation flying car, the Voyager X1. Since then, the Voyager X1 – which can take off and land vertically in a parking lot – has completed more than 10,000 test flights. And test drives are scheduled to start in China by the end of 2021.

In the meantime, to make sure the public is not left without something new, the company has posted a video of its fifth-generation development on Weibo. It makes Voyager X2 look more like a passenger drone with two seats, eight propellers, four axles and various autonomous capabilities. The vehicle weighs 360 kg and has a maximum take-off weight of 560 kg.

It can stay airborne for up to 35 minutes and has a maximum speed of 130 km/h. It can also plan its flight path autonomously, and thanks to its various sensors it can monitor the ground, not to mention facilitate landings and provide real-time communication over a distance of 100 kilometres. In addition, the X2 has a number of safety features. Eight independent battery packs for redundancy, a 24-hour monitoring system and a parachute as a last resort.