Shanghai (ZXZC)- On September 16, XPENG AEROHT, an urban air mobility (UAM) company affiliated with XPeng Inc., celebrated the inauguration of its comprehensive ground testing center for flying cars, according to a post on the company's WeChat account.

Spanning approximately 58,000 square meters, this center is pivotal to XPENG AEROHT's R&D and validation of new flying car technologies and technical standard development, conducting comprehensive ground-level tests for both the entire vehicle and system components.

Photo credit: XPeng

The testing center will be constructed in two phases, with the recently inaugurated Phase One covering 30,000 square meters. The Phase One primarily focuses on constructing 12 categories of critical large-scale test benches, including pioneering elements such as gantry cranes, rotor towers, and flight vibration platforms. The Phase Two, with an area of 28,000 square meters, plans to establish laboratories for key systems like flight control and autonomous driving. These labs will include facilities for high and low-temperature environment testing, material mechanics performance, as well as scenarios for integrating aircraft and automotive use.

The center’s director Chen Shuo emphasized that the center will conduct ground tests for attributes such as overall system strength, load capacity, vibration resistance, durability, environmental factors, and materials. This comprehensive approach will support the validation of products throughout the entire process, from virtual simulation to laboratory and field experiments, ensuring the effectiveness of R&D and designs.

XPENG AEROHT, the largest flying car company in Asia, has continuously enhanced its pioneering testing and flight verification system since its establishment in 2020. With its R&D headquarters in Guangzhou, it has established four major testing bases: the Seagull Island Flight Base, responsible for validation flights, durability tests, and certification flights; the R&D Flight Test Center, catering to framework phase flight testing needs; the Power Test Center, providing testing requirements for electric propulsion, batteries, and high-voltage electrical components; and the newly inaugurated Comprehensive Ground Testing Center, covering the entire R&D, testing, and flight verification process for flying cars.