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Watch Videos: XPENG AEROHT Introduces Future of Mobility with “Two Revolutionary Transport Designs”

Chi­na-based XPENG AEROHT, an affil­i­ate of XPENG Motors, unveiled not one but “two rev­o­lu­tion­ary trans­port designs” at this week’s XPENG Tech Day 2023, reports a press release. First, the Land Air­craft Car­ri­er + eVTOL and sec­ond, the Fly­ing Car. Both include a range of inno­v­a­tive safe­ty advance­ments, high­light­ing how advanced Chi­na is, in the glob­al race to dom­i­nate the future of mobil­i­ty.

Land Air­craft Car­ri­er + eVTOL AKA Mod­u­lar Ground Fly­ing Car

The release states, “This inno­v­a­tive mar­vel boasts a unique two-part design, seam­less­ly switch­ing between a ter­res­tri­al and aer­i­al mode. The air mod­ule facil­i­tates ver­ti­cal take­off for low-alti­tude flights, while the ground mod­ule inge­nious­ly envelops the air mod­ule, allow­ing for ground trans­porta­tion.”

It con­tin­ues, “The ground mod­ule of the mod­u­lar fly­ing car accom­mo­dates four to five pas­sen­gers and fea­tures an extend­ed-range hybrid pow­er sys­tem that can pro­vide mul­ti­ple recharges for the air mod­ule. The vehi­cle is designed with a three-axle, six-wheel con­fig­u­ra­tion, enabling 6x6 all-wheel dri­ve and rear-wheel steer­ing, offer­ing impres­sive car­ry­ing capac­i­ty and off-road capa­bil­i­ties.” Adding, “The futur­is­tic, cyber-mechan­i­cal aes­thet­ic is char­ac­terised by sharp lines and sleek sur­faces, rem­i­nis­cent of a lunar explo­ration vehi­cle.”

Xpeng points out the ground mod­ule design is still in devel­op­ment. 

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Mean­while, the eVTOL is a ful­ly elec­tric pilot­ed air­craft capa­ble of ver­ti­cal take­off and low-alti­tude flight. The release con­tin­ues, “The prod­uct employs a dis­trib­uted elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem to meet sin­gle-point fail­ure safe­ty require­ments. It sup­ports both man­u­al and auto­mat­ic dri­ving modes, pro­vid­ing an acces­si­ble fly­ing expe­ri­ence. The 270° panoram­ic two-per­son cock­pit offers a wide field of view.”

An auto­mat­ed sys­tem stream­lines the sep­a­ra­tion and com­bi­na­tion of the air and ground mod­ules “just like the Trans­form­ers, mak­ing fly­ing more acces­si­ble and extend­ing the user’s trav­el expe­ri­ence from the ground to the sky.”

Beyond per­son­al use, Xpeng believes the sys­tem holds poten­tial for pub­lic ser­vices like emer­gency res­cue, while “effec­tive­ly cater­ing to both pub­lic and pri­vate demands.”

Con­sid­er­ing pol­i­cy, reg­u­la­tion and appli­ca­tion fac­tors, the pro­duc­tion and deliv­ery of the mod­u­lar fly­ing car will pre­cede the eVTOL fly­ing car, align­ing with indus­try trends.

eVTOL Fly­ing Car AKA Air Mod­ule

The release states, “This prod­uct con­tin­ues to build upon the pre­vi­ous two years of inno­va­tion, with fur­ther refine­ments. Com­po­nents such as manip­u­la­tor arms, rotor sys­tems, and oth­er flight fea­tures can be effort­less­ly fold­ed and stored with­in the vehi­cle. The design exudes a super­car style, fea­tur­ing an intel­li­gent cock­pit that seam­less­ly switch­es between land and flight modes, adapt­ing com­po­nents like the steer­ing wheel and dash­board accord­ing to the select­ed mode.”

Safe­ty remains key to future mobil­i­ty and XPENG AEROHT also show­cased sig­nif­i­cant advance­ments with­in its lat­est tech­nolo­gies. The air mod­ule eVTOL fea­tures “a 6‑axis, 6‑rotor con­fig­u­ra­tion and incor­po­rates two inno­v­a­tive reversible ducts.” If a rotor fails, the flight con­trol sys­tem “can make mil­lisec­ond-lev­el algo­rithm adjust­ments, ensur­ing the craft’s con­tin­ued safe oper­a­tion.” This capa­bil­i­ty, cou­pled with a thrust-to-weight ratio exceed­ing two, enables the air­craft “to main­tain safe flight even after los­ing two of its six rotors, meet­ing the strin­gent safe­ty stan­dards required for civ­il avi­a­tion.”

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Safe­ty

To enhance safe­ty fur­ther, XPENG AEROHT has devel­oped a mul­ti-para­chute res­cue sys­tem. Suc­cess­ful­ly test­ed at just 50 metres alti­tude in Octo­ber, “this break­through fills a glob­al safe­ty gap in ultra-low alti­tude res­cues.” 

The sys­tem’s max­i­mum capac­i­ty is one ton and includes pio­neer­ing fea­tures like ultra-low alti­tude para­chute open­ing and an embed­ded safe­ty res­cue con­trol pan­el. Xpeng points out, “It breaks indus­try stan­dards by deploy­ing para­chutes at 50 metres instead of the usu­al 200+ metres, ensur­ing a safer touch­down at approx­i­mate­ly 5 m/s, pro­tect­ing pas­sen­gers and the air­craft.”

Ear­li­er this year, var­i­ous poli­cies relat­ing to the low-alti­tude econ­o­my, totalling over 120, were released by cen­tral and local author­i­ties in Chi­na.

In Octo­ber, the Min­istry of Indus­try and Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy, along with the Min­istry of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy, the Min­istry of Finance, and the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion, joint­ly unveiled the ‘Out­line for the Devel­op­ment of Green Avi­a­tion Man­u­fac­tur­ing (2023–2035)’. The plan lays out a strate­gic time­line for the devel­op­ment of eVTOLs.

In the pre­vi­ous month, the Bei­jing Munic­i­pal Gov­ern­men­t’s ‘Plan for Pro­mot­ing Inno­va­tion in Future Indus­tries’ focus­es on smart trans­porta­tion, encour­ag­ing the con­ver­gence of var­i­ous indus­tri­al tech­nolo­gies. These pol­i­cy ini­tia­tives under­score a com­mit­ment to cre­at­ing a thriv­ing envi­ron­ment for the devel­op­ment of the Chi­na’s eVTOL and fly­ing car indus­try.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.aeroht.com/

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