Somewhere out there, George Jetson was just born – and the flying car dream took another big step towards reality.
Chinese urban air mobility company XPeng AeroHT completed building out its trial production factory on July 25. Based in Hualong Town, Panyu District, Guangzhou City, the property spans over 8.6 acres, with the factory buildings themselves covering just under 5 acres. The buildings include a power test center, two trial production workshops, and a flying car test center.
The new XPeng plant is set to start operations immediately, including tasks like performance tests before mass production, process validation and verification, and trial production. The team will also be doing pre-research, machining, and testing other products.
As an urban air mobility company, XPeng has been regularly making headlines about its progress toward its goal of building the world’s first flying car. It still promises to deliver that car by 2024, though it’s obviously still at the concept stage. Meanwhile, the company announced back in June that it had completed the first round of financing, where it raised a total of over $500 million.
At the factory’s inauguration ceremony, XPeng co-founder and chairman He Xiaopeng said that, “the product AeroHT is currently working on is a flying car, but its core is still a car. For any car company, trial production and testing are all essential.” Further speaking, he stated that “Four years ago, Xiaopeng Motors also had a trial production plant of a similar scale … I believe that this factory can accompany us through the most rapid development of the start-up period. In the near future, when the first generation of Huitian flying cars is launched, we will be the world’s first flying car.”
You can take a closer look at XPeng’s flying car concept in this teaser video from 2021, below, then let us know what you think of all this in the comments section at the bottom of the page.
First Look: XPeng Flying Car
SOURCE | IMAGES: CAR NEWS CHINA.
