If you’ve been wrestling with how to bring your personal flying machine along in your car, look no further. During CES 2025 this week, Chinese company Xpeng Aeroht showed off its hybrid car that houses (and charges!) your very own electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, or eVTOL, in the back.
Just drive to where you’d like to take off, and open the trunk: The eVTOL will unfold itself, Transformers-style, from the rear of your car.
The six-wheel “land aircraft carrier” looks like a cross between a minivan and a Tesla Cybertruck — but way cooler than both.
“Why we have this design … it’s more for the capability of this vehicle, for the extra weight of this eVTOL and [to] have the capability to go off road,” Xpeng Aeroht co-founder and vice president Wang Tan told CNET’s Jesse Orrall at CES. “And secondly, we think about how to make it futuristic.”
Most personal eVTOLs require their owners to tow a trailer to wherever they want to take off, and they also have low range because of their small but heavy batteries. But this two-seater flying machine has a range of up to 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) — and if your hybrid car has a full tank of gas and a full charge, it can charge the eVTOL up to six times while the aircraft sits in the trunk as you drive.
See also: I Learned to Fly an Electric Aircraft in 3 Days. It Blew My Mind
Though the flying machine has to be a little more compact than others to squeeze inside that trunk, Orrall sat inside it, and even with his height of 5 feet, 11 inches, his head wasn’t hitting the roof and he had plenty of leg space.
The eVTOL is controlled via a joystick, with buttons as backup, and has it duct fans under some of the propellers to keep the aircraft stable in case any issue occurs with those props.
Xpeng Aeroht plans to mass produce the hybrid modular flying car for delivery to customers in 2026, and it already has over 3,000 intent orders. (It’s still working on getting regulatory approval in China, and hopes to expand to other markets.) The vehicle is priced at just under $300,000.
Read more: These Are the Official 2025 Best of CES Winners, Awarded by CNET Group
CES 2025: The 32 Gadgets and Ideas We Can’t Stop Thinking About
See all photos
Read the full article here
