Author: Wang Hui
Introduction: Those who are always at ease will never broaden their horizons; only those who are not afraid of criticism can go further and wider.
Since ancient times, human beings have been challenging their own limits. If there are physical conditions, they keep challenging; if there are no conditions, they create them. In the traditional concept of airborne transportation, people still pay more attention to large equipment. However, in fact, many automobile companies have begun to focus on miniaturized “flying cars”.
Flying cars are dual-purpose vehicles for land and air transportation. Such vehicles transform from traditional highway cars to airborne cars. The world’s first flying car was realized in the United States, and its wings can be directly folded when it lands, driving on highways. In the future, people will use aerial traffic to solve the problem of insufficient ground capacity, which has become a common consensus.
Against the background of the global development of electric and intelligent vehicles, the cross-border penetration and integration of automobile and aviation technology are becoming the trend of a new round of technological and industrial revolutions. As a new type of transportation tool for urban aerial traffic and future travel, flying cars are increasingly valued by global innovators.
Under the banner of Geely Technology, Wofei Changkong established its subsidiary Wollong Airspace; Peak Flight Aviation Technology announced the completion of a $100 million A round of financing; EHang Intelligent released an autonomous aerial vehicle VT-30. Flying cars, which have been in the dream stage for over a hundred years, have gradually entered the real world and become a new outlet for many technology companies.
In December 2019, EHang’s listing not only represented the “first stock of drones”, but also launched a new concept for the public-Urban Air Mobility (UAM). This is a safe and efficient urban air transportation system. This is NASA’s definition of UAM, including scenarios for both passenger and cargo transportation, which is much broader than the common multi-rotor drone market. The most challenging scenarios faced by UAM are as follows: first, last-mile delivery; second, airbus; third, air taxi. In addition, UAM itself is a systematic engineering, which requires other equipment to support it in addition to aircraft.
Just like the automobile industry, urban air transportation systems are also facing electrification, intelligence and unmanned changes. The development of electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, fully automatic driving and fleet management is expected to completely change the way of intercity and intracity transportation. However, before becoming a feasible transportation solution, UAM still needs to face many challenges.In terms of safety, this involves various hidden dangers related to aircraft, route operations management, and cybersecurity. With regard to economics, investment in infrastructure and the cost of daily management and operation are undoubtedly huge, requiring sufficient support and reserve. In terms of demand, autonomous driving and other tools will compete with UAM for transportation, affecting people’s willingness to pay for speed. As for acceptance, there are many difficult-to-solve practical problems to deal with, such as privacy and noise, with regard to public opinion, social impact, and supervision. Nevertheless, the development of electric vehicles and aircraft is also complementary to UAM.
As a company that does not follow the traditional logic of car manufacturing and is quite different from the logic of general new energy automotive companies, XPeng Motors has been insisting on using the combination of internet thinking and car manufacturing logic to drive the transformation of the intelligent electric vehicle industry for many years, advocating that data leads future travel. Nowadays, XPeng Motors’ car manufacturing logic also deeply influences its exploration of aircraft.
XPeng Huitian
Speaking of XPeng, most people may subconsciously think of XPeng Motors and are not familiar with XPeng Huitian. XPeng Huitian is a high-tech innovative aviation company jointly invested and controlled by He XPeng and XPeng Motors. Founded 7 years ago, it is the formulator of China’s new aircraft design regulations.
At the 2020 Beijing Auto Show, XPeng Motors announced that it would establish a holding company, “XPeng Huitian.” The core business of the company is in the field of low-altitude flying cars. XPeng Huitian, founded by He XPeng and Zhao Deli, is dedicated to building the world’s safest intelligent electric flying car with the goal of urban air mobility (UAM), using automotive systems and thinking to bring flying into family life.
At the event, XPeng Huitian also displayed its first-generation low-altitude flying car product, the Traveler T1. The “aircraft” has won the German Red Dot Design Award for its exterior design, has a large wingspan, and the strongest carrying capacity, making it a new platform for aerial sightseeing tours and entertainment. The release of the Traveler T1 represents XPeng’s exploration and understanding of future travel concepts.
However, like all new things at the beginning, the appearance of the T1 is not only questioned itself but also brings criticism to XPeng Motors.This is inevitable: when facing new things, there are always people who admire and others who question. Some praise its beauty and the technology of XPeng, while others criticize its practicality and the intentions of XPeng. Some comment on its unique skeletal beauty, while others sneer that it’s just an enlarged version of a DJI drone without even having doors, seemingly made for people to endure the wind and rain in mid-air.
However, only those who keep striving can go further and wider, with a narrow focus and fearlessness towards critiques.
At the Shanghai Auto Show in April this year, XPeng unveiled its fourth-generation smart electric flying car: the Xpeng X1 Traveller, which is the same size as a regular car and capable of vertical takeoff and landing in a parking spot. The XPeng X1 Traveller had already undergone over ten thousand test flights and was originally scheduled for launch at the end of 2021, with test rides and drives open to the public.
On September 15, the 3rd World New Energy Vehicle Conference (WNEVC) was held at the Hainan International Convention and Exhibition Center, gathering global experts in the new energy vehicle industry and elites in the industrial, academic and research communities. At the conference, XPeng Huitian CEO Zhao Deli gave a speech entitled “XPeng Huitian’s Exploration of Future Air Travel,” sharing insights and thoughts on using flying cars in future aviation and automotive scenarios, resource integration between aviation and automotive industries, and the opportunities and challenges posed by flying cars.
Currently, the annual sales of planes worldwide do not exceed 10,000, but the global annual sales of cars nearly reach 80 million. At the initial stage, Zhao Deli and his team conducted a study and found that if energy substitution could be considered and the logic of automobiles applied, the flying car, which effectively solves existing pain points, actually had huge imaginative space.
With such conviction, from 2013 until now, Zhao Deli’s team has developed three models of flying cars over five generations, focusing on solving various problems of flying cars. However, when it came to manufacturing the first true flying car, some flying performance had to be sacrificed in order to make the land driving better—90% on the road and the rest in the sky.
Addressing urban air travel presents many challenges such as safety, policies, and range. “It may take a long time for UAM aircraft applied to urban air travel, but this flying car that can serve end customers and C-end users may come true in the next five years because we can take off in some specific areas, and this car can still be driven regularly, which is our logic,” Zhao Deli said.
Most companies exploring the eVTOL field worldwide tend to offer air travel services to B-end customers. However, XPeng Huitian insists on first providing flying car products to individual customers, namely, C-end users. These products could also be used for urban air travel (UAM) in the future.
Although the concept of flying cars is currently popular, the goal remains a long, difficult journey towards achievement.On July 17th, 2021, the China Electric Aviation Forum was held in Changsha, Hunan Province to further strengthen international exchange and cooperation, accelerate the coordinated development of the automobile and energy, transportation, information and communication industries, and accelerate the breakthrough of obstacles to the marketization of new energy vehicles. Zhao Deli gave a speech on the theme of “Exploration of Electric Flying Cars”.
Zhao Deli shared their exploration results and thoughts on future flying car application scenarios, resource integration between the aviation and automobile industries, and opportunities and challenges of flying cars around the world. At the same time, he also showcased the future urban application scenario of XPeng’s self-developed flying car, Traveler X2. This was not only XPeng Heitech’s first public display of its vision for a fully automated flying car production line, various takeoff and landing scenarios, and future flight, but also the first time founder Zhao Deli shared the company’s exploration results and thoughts at a public event.
Despite difficulties, XPeng Heitech has always maintained confidence. Their confidence comes from two sources: on a macro level, the strong support from the national level for innovation, which is a very important source of confidence; in addition, in the field of new energy, XPeng Heitech hopes to change the way people travel in the future through energy reform.
“Now, new energy vehicles have been achieved, next is the transformation of the traditional aviation industry, and we hope that our company can contribute to it,” said Zhao Deli.
XPeng Heitech’s status as a promoter of domestic new aircraft design regulations is closely related to the company’s talent strategy. Zhao Deli, one of XPeng Heitech’s founders, gained popularity years ago for making a flying motorcycle with his knowledge and technology, and displaying it on a big screen. He used his achievements to surprise people to let everyone know that what was once just an imagination could become a reality. From then on, the title “Sky Rider” became popular.
Today, years later, a search for Zhao Deli in the search box will show many related videos of “the first person to fly a motorcycle in the air, Zhao Deli”. Observant people will find that he is one of the founders of XPeng Heitech.
Regardless of external speculations about Zhao Deli’s dealings with He XPeng, an undeniable fact is that for so many years, Zhao Deli has not given up on his original intention, even though he is rarely mentioned in the media. In 1998, due to family economic reasons, Zhao Deli dropped out of school and started working away from home. In the 1990s, like ordinary people, Zhao Deli worked in various industries to make a living. He has worked as a fruit vendor, real estate agent, residential security guard, and farm owner.In 2008, by chance, Dele Zhao saw a pedestrian playing with a model aircraft on the street and became very interested. He discovered a small manned aircraft made in Canada online and purchased a skateboard to try to imitate a similar aircraft.
Through trial and error, Zhao found that because the audience for flying skateboards was too small, he needed to develop a product that could serve the public, so he decided to install a cushion and handlebars on the aircraft and develop a flying motorcycle. On June 26, 2018 (another source says June 23), Zhao’s flying motorcycle experiment was successful. He introduced it to the media, stating that the motorcycle had undergone 1,564 test flights and 40 or 50 crashes before achieving success. The symbol of experimental success was driving the flying motorcycle to fly continuously at a height of 6 meters for a period of time.
Zhao named this flying motorcycle “Jindouyun”. He explained that this electric-powered model had a maximum takeoff weight of 256 kilograms, a maximum flying height of 3,000 meters, a maximum flying speed of 72 kilometers per hour, and a maximum range of 30 kilometers. With a video showcasing his successful flight experiments, Zhao, who understood how to promote and market himself, began to seek publicity in various media channels and attempted to find capital support.
Over the course of several years, the short videos of Zhao’s successful test flights were widely exposed on various websites and programs, including “Manufacturing the Future” on Zhejiang Satellite TV, “I Am the Future” on Hunan Satellite TV, “China’s Got Talent” on Dragon TV, “Only You,” a program on Tianjin Satellite TV, the 5th Jackie Chan International Action Movie Week, and the 2019 Taobao Maker Festival. Huitian Aerospace Industry’s official Weibo showed that Zhao had also been interviewed by media outlets such as Xinhua News Agency and BBC. For a time, Zhao was portrayed as an “inventor internet celebrity” by the media.
As for the future, there are no limits to what can be achieved, regardless of how far the mountains or the sea.
He XPeng’s seven-year research and development of flying cars, in fact, has only just begun.
In addition to the founder’s special identity, every employee of XPeng Huitian is a hidden talent. On August 20th, XPeng Huitian officially employed Professor Zhang Wenjin of Beihang University as the chief reliability expert for the entire aircraft to provide forward-looking technological and strategic guidance for research and development and talent cultivation.
Professor Zhang Wenjin has long been engaged in teaching, scientific research, and engineering applications in reliability system engineering. He has served as a reliability expert for Long March 5 carrier rockets, a reliability engineer for J-10 fighter planes, a deputy chief engineer for model reliability of high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles, a deputy chief engineer for model reliability of Z-20 helicopters, and a deputy chief engineer for Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics’ reliability engineering research institute. He has also been a deputy director of the China Aviation Industry’s reliability technology center, a special reliability expert for Great Wall Motor Company, and an expert member of the reliability promotion committee of the China Quality Association.Translate the following Chinese Markdown text to English Markdown text. Keep HTML tags inside Markdown and only output the result.
Hosted the Liaoning aircraft carrier aviation support system, Hainan Launch Center, and high-speed train reliability analysis projects, participated in the planning and review of major aviation industry models, and taught undergraduate courses: “Reliable engineering literacy”, “Engineering System Planning and Design,” and graduate courses: “Product Supportability Analysis Technology”.
Not only this professor, but also there are many talents in the company, including senior engineers and experts from various industries, such as the automotive industry and the aerospace industry, who are all outstanding in their respective fields.
XPeng Heavens and Zhao Deli with clear goals are walking on the road to realizing their flying dreams.
Setting Sail
In July of this year, XPeng launched its fifth-generation aircraft X2, marking that it is one step closer to a wider and safer flying car.
On September 28, the 13th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition opened at the Zhuhai Airshow Center in Guangdong. A group of aviation and aerospace products, technologies, and services representing the world’s advanced levels made their global debut and China’s first show, including a 3D model of a space station combination and Chang’e 5 lunar probe. Among these products that are characterized by “high, precision, specialization, and novelty”, XPeng’s first two-seat intelligent electric flying aircraft, Voyager X2, particularly caught people’s attention.
The maximum take-off weight of the fifth-generation aircraft Voyager X2 is 560kg, the bare aircraft weight is 360kg, and the endurance time is 35 minutes. The fastest flight speed can reach 130km/h. In addition, Voyager X2 has autonomous flight path planning capability and an ejection parachute function.
Zhao Deli revealed that XPeng’s sixth-generation product will meet everyone in the next few years. This product will be a true flying car that can fly in the sky and drive on the road, helping smart, green, and three-dimensional transportation.
On October 24, 1024, not only is it a sign of the development of the times, but it also appears repeatedly on the road of human development. Whether it is high-definition pictures or data storage, it cannot do without these four digits. Therefore, on this day, 1024 has become a programmer’s holiday, and it is also XPeng’s technology day.
Starting in 2019, XPeng began to sound the horn of exploring intelligent cars from 1024. In this year’s 1024, XPeng conducted a debate with the theme “If there is a time machine that can take you to a society with more advanced technology 50 years from now, will you go?” In addition, XPeng also showed a video of the sixth-generation aircraft and announced that the flying car will be officially launched in 2024.
Flying cars, as a new type of urban transportation with great development potential, have been rapidly developing in the past decade and have become an important trend of cross-border integration between aviation and automotive technology. Whether time travel machines will appear or not remains unknown, but technology has been developing at high speed. Xiao Peng is also on the way to realizing the dream of flying cars.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.