Introduction:
Every Science fiction movie that showed flying cars as its context of implying futurism is about to come true. An affiliate company of an electric vehicle company from China called Xpeng Motors has promised to yield out flying cars, the ultimate symbol of futurism by the year 2024. The affiliate is called HT Aero and it has also presented a prototype. The company claimed that the flying car can also be driven on the roads and the prototype showed us the same.
Flying Car 2024– The future of electronic vehicles?
People were instantly hooked as soon as the prototype revealed that the car could be driven both on roads and air. The prototype also revealed the car design which resembled that of a Bugatti electric hypercar. But it must be mentioned that the Chinese Electric vehicle company, HT Aero mentioned that there might be changes in the ultimate design of the car since they are looking for places they could improve upon. It might pique the curiosity of the readers as to how the car is supposed to transition between its flying mode and driving mode. The transition would be simple- to fly the car, the rotors will be expanded as per requirement. During the times you want to drive the cars on the road, the wings from the flying mode would instantly fold away at the push of a button.
Does the Largest Chinese EV maker now have competition?
Xpeng, the Chinese electronic vehicle company has been growing rapidly and could stand to challenge the biggest Chinese EV makers like Xiaomi, Huawei, or Baidu. The revenue of this company has been ever increasing and has come up to almost two billion US dollars, which roughly converts to about fifteen crores in Indian currency. The founder of Xpeng, He Xiaopeng, and the company itself managed to garner a whopping amount of five hundred million dollars just the week prior. Some regard HT Aero to become a very promising entrepreneurial endeavor in the upcoming years.
How safe is the flying car?
The question of safety is raised when it comes to something as promising as flying cars. The company has promised to observe a plethora of safety measures to make sure that the passengers are safe. This includes having safeguarded parachutes, as was reported by the CNBC news.
As far as the official website of the company reports, the car will have a feature that would entail an advanced environmental perception system that would help in evaluating the weather conditions and surroundings before the takeoff. This would further help ensure safety before the car takes off for a flight. The car would also have an autopilot mode, as is naturally understandable. The company’s website mentioned that while the car s set to autopilot mode, the driver is only required to perform the simplest of functions like pressing one key to start, pressing another to return, and pressing just one key for the car to safely make a landing. Before the flight is supposed to take place, the car’s system automatically figures an automatic smart route or a flying path. The planning of this route is based on the destination that the driver is attempting to reach. The destination matters because the system itself would take into consideration the demographic that the route could encounter. This means taking into account the restricted areas, the no-fly zones, and the taller buildings that could alter the route of the flying car. While the safety measures are being looked into by the company, the company’s website did not mention how they are planning to get past regulations of the governing authorities. They would want to mass produce these vehicles sometime in the future if they make a successful test run. But the permission to mass produces these EV cars could be a mammoth task for the producers of these flying cars.
The company HT Aero chose Xpeng’s Tech day to make this announcement. Alongside the land and air vehicle that it announced, the announcement for the most advanced version of the driver assistance system was also made. The new driver’s assistant system has been called Xpilot 4.0. The system is said to be a huge leap towards the direction of complete autonomy. Conjectures surrounding the launch of the system say that it might come out sometime around the first part of 2023.
Conclusion:
Flying Cars have attracted a lot of traction in the present times from not just startups and automakers, but also people who are genuinely interested in the future of electronic vehicles. The fans of futuristic cars abound and this news sounded like music to those enthusiasts of EV cars. However, it must be kept in mind that there are several challenges that the car could face which precludes primarily safety measures and safety issues. Apart from that governmental regulations and norms should also be addressed before the car is launched. For flying cars to take shape as the future of vehicles is a long run, but it can surely be hoped that somewhere along the line, this counts as the first step. It would take some time before the concept is started to be adopted on a much wider scale.
