At Least One Injured in Mid-Air eVTOL Crash Ahead of Live Flight Demo in China

Just ahead of a live flight demonstration, two electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft built by the self-proclaimed ‘largest flying car company in Asia’ collided mid-air. While it is unknown exactly what went wrong, incidents like this draw attention from the already skeptical public, especially given the limited proof that this futuristic technology could be a functional reality.

XPeng’s technology unit, AeroHT, was founded in 2013. It first drew headlines in 2021 with the X2: a sleek fifth-generation prototype that traded wheels for propellers, utilizing design characteristics from the XPeng P7 sedan. The company later debuted a convertible EV/eVTOL hybrid and the so-called Land Carrier, which is a six-wheel vehicle with a detachable eVTOL tucked into its rear compartment.

AeroHT first showed off the Land Carrier’s capabilities to a crowd in late 2024 as part of the 15th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition. The aircraft must have left a solid impression, with pre-order logs already surpassing 2,000. The factory hopes to grind out 10,000 units annually.

This progress was supposed to be a highlight of the Changchun Airshow, and that came true for all the wrong reasons. The two flying cars were rehearsing formation flight for the Changchun Airshow in northeast China when the collision occurred. One aircraft managed to land safely, while the other crashed to the ground, caught fire, and left at least one person injured and hospitalized. According to XPeng, the collision happened because the two aircraft did not maintain adequate separation during the maneuver.

The company assures that an internal investigation is already underway to pinpoint the exact cause and remedy any potential issues. The company maintains that safety remains its top priority, even with its ambitious plans to begin mass production of its Land Aircraft Carrier platform in 2026. Seeing as the Land Carrier is still in the prototype phase, and with the eVTOL lagging in mere concepts, the manufacturer has quite of bit to get done before then.

FMI: www.xpeng.com