The construction of the XPeng car mill with the flying module begins

chiny24.com 7 months ago

On October 27th this year, representatives of XPeng Motor (chin. 小鹏汽车), 1 of China's most crucial electrical car manufacturers, made a solemn laying of the foundation stone on the site of an emerging car mill with a flying module to start production in 2026. 10 1000 specified vehicles are expected to descend from the assembly lines of the plant all year. The device plan was created in the offices of Huitian Aero Technology Co., Ltd. (chin. 汇天航空航天科技有限公司) a subsidiary of XPeng Motors.

In the factory, which is under construction, a two-modal electrical vehicle will be produced, referred to as the ‘Land Aircraft Carrier’ (land-based aircraft). The first module is simply a three-axle electrical car (transporter), in which the second module, or electric, flying passenger drone, will be located.

The vehicle was presented at the beginning of September, for which XPeng Motors received then more than 2,000 orders.

The pre-sale of the car began in November, after the first public show of this vehicle during the ZhuHai Air Show (chin. 珠海航展).

The factory, located in GuangZhou improvement region (chin. 广州开发区) in the administrative area of Canton, will occupy an area of 18 ha in the first stage.

Only flying modules (drones) will be produced in the plant, while the assembly of electrical transporters will take place at 1 of the Xpeng EV production facilities in GuangDong state (ZhaoQing or GuangZhou). The transporter is 5.5 m long, 2 m wide and 2 m high. It is built on the 800V EREV platform and has a scope of up to 1000 km.

Thanks to the advanced voltage system, it can charge the flying module from 30 to 80% in 18 minutes. The drone has the ability to land autonomously and dock inside the transporter. After full battery charge, the drone is able to execute 5 to 6 flights and can operate autonomously, or be piloted by a individual travelling it.

There are 2 main obstacles to the fast improvement of specified vehicles.
The first is the price – Xpeng valued its modular vehicle at about 1.5-2 million RMB (about 845 1000 – 1,127 million PLN).
The second – owners of specified a vehicle, in addition to the driving licence, will gotta have a chopper pilot licence (the cost of obtaining is approx. 50,000 RMB, approx. 28.175 PLN). Nevertheless, plans by another electrical car manufacturers indicate that modular flying cars are slow becoming a trend in this industry. An example is simply a competitive model late presented by Chery Automobile Co., Ltd. (chin. 奇瑞汽车股份有限公司).

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