Dubai hosts world’s first public test flight of Chinese Xpeng eVTOL X2 flying car

Yes­ter­day, Dubai Inter­na­tion­al Cham­ber host­ed the world’s first pub­lic flight of China’s XPeng X2 eVTOL fly­ing car at Sky­dive Dubai, com­plet­ing a his­toric 90-sec­ond test flight and sup­port­ed by Dubai Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty, Dubai Depart­ment of Econ­o­my and Tourism and Dubai World Trade Cen­tre Author­i­ty.

Dubai Inter­na­tion­al Cham­ber coor­di­nat­ed sev­er­al meet­ings with rel­e­vant gov­ern­ment enti­ties and depart­ments in Dubai, includ­ing the Roads and Trans­port Author­i­ty, Dubai Elec­tric­i­ty and Water Author­i­ty, and Dubai Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty among oth­ers.

The Cham­ber also helped facil­i­tate the two-seater X2 fly­ing car’s first pub­lic flight on the side­lines of GITEX Glob­al 2022, which emits zero car­bon diox­ide and is designed for a low-alti­tude max­i­mum flight speed of 130 km per hour.

Act­ing pres­i­dent & CEO of Dubai Cham­bers Has­san Al Hashe­mi said: “Dubai has become a mag­net and test­bed for com­pa­nies from around the world and the deci­sion to debut the X2 fly­ing car in Dubai is a tes­ta­ment to Dubai’s posi­tion as glob­al inno­va­tion leader and hub for future tech­nol­o­gy.”

Dubai World Trade Cen­tre exec­u­tive VP Trix­ie LohMir­mand said: “Elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (eVTOL) air­craft are the future of trav­el, and it is incred­i­ble to wit­ness his­to­ry in the mak­ing today. Host­ing this momen­tous event puts GITEX GLOBAL at the heart of the glob­al shift to low-car­bon urban air mobil­i­ty.”

XPeng vice pres­i­dent and chair­man Dr Bri­an Gu added: “The X2 has begun to devel­op since 2020 and is sched­uled to be deliv­ered in 2024. We hope that our fly­ing car will be a per­fect match for Dubai, to joint­ly explore and build the future of 3D trans­porta­tion, so that every­one can fly freely.”

Dubai Inter­na­tion­al Cham­bers’ strat­e­gy focus­es on strength­en­ing Dubai’s posi­tion as a glob­al busi­ness cen­tre, attract­ing 50 multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies to Dubai with­in three years, and sup­port­ing the expan­sion of 100 com­pa­nies from Dubai to pri­or­i­ty for­eign mar­kets with­in two years.

Last month, Glob­al Sky Media released a free 84-page report cov­er­ing the devel­op­ing Asia-Pacif­ic Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM). It cov­ers 19 eVTOL Orig­i­nal Equip­ment Man­u­fac­tur­ers (OEMs) that are either head­quar­tered in Asia-Pacif­ic or orig­i­nal­ly found­ed in the region includ­ing EHang, Aut­oFlight, Xpeng, TCab Tech, Sky­Drive, Super­nal, Hon­da and Volant.