World's first flying car factory begins trial production in China

CGTN Europe

The future of cars could be up in the air... A #flyingcar may seem like the stuff of science fiction. But in China, it's on the cusp of going into mass production. In a huge leap toward the age of personal air travel, #XPeng has opened the world's first flying car factory. CGTN Jen Copestake reports.

Transcript

00:00It's a world first, a mass production line for personal flying vehicles.

00:05The land aircraft carrier, ARAGE's modular land-air system,

00:09combines a sleek electric SUV with a detachable flying vehicle

00:14that takes off and lands vertically.

00:17The company says this factory in Guangzhou will one day be capable of manufacturing

00:2210,000 flying vehicles per year, thanks to its highly automated robotic systems.

00:30Techniques adapted from electric car manufacturing but pushed to aviation-grade precision.

00:35At the orange area over there, you can see our robot performing automated riveting.

00:41Traditional aircraft manufacturing has much lower production volumes

00:44compared to the automotive industry.

00:47But since we plan to produce 10,000 aircraft a year,

00:50one every half hour, automation becomes a necessity rather than an option.

00:55In October, the land aircraft carrier was tested outside China for the first time,

01:01taking off in Dubai, where the company has announced 600 confirmed orders across the Gulf region,

01:07with deliveries planned by 2027.

01:10The vehicle is expected to cost around 280,000 U.S. dollars.

01:14The whole UAE or GCC area has been, over the last decades, embracing new technology,

01:20especially advanced air mobilities.

01:22So I think this mindset is very important for the product's success.

01:26Secondly, it has the right environment like application scenarios, use cases,

01:32and of course, the large affluent customer base.

01:35And as Average scales up production at home, parent company Xpeng is betting big

01:40that the future of mobility won't just be electric, it will be airborne.

01:46Jen Copestake, CGTN.

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