Flying cars crash during warm-up for Chinese air show

The BBC News reports that a pair of flying cars collided during a rehearsal for an air show in China.

Evidently two XPeng AeroHT vehicles collided in mid-air. And one caught fire while landing, the company told Reuters.

While XPeng said people at the scene were safe, CNN reported that one person sustained injuries in the crash.

The rehearsals were for the Changchun Air Show, which begins later this week in north-east China. Appliances extinguished the fire in the vehicle on the ground. Evidently it had sustained fuselage damage and caught fire upon landing.   

XPeng said that “local authorities have completed on-site emergency measures in an orderly manner”.

The electric flying cars are VTOL machines (vertical take off and landing) and the company is hoping to sell them for around $US300,000 each. XPeng says it holds at least 3000 orders already. Or it did until today.

The Chinese company is one of the largest manufacturers of electric vehicles (EVs) in the world. Its flying cars are made by a subsidiary, AeroHT.

There are considerable hurdles for this form of transport in terms of infrastructure, regulation and public acceptance.

Some experts believe China is attempting to replicate the success it has had with EVs on land. Companies are pushing for early adoption of a tech that they believe will eventually become commonplace.

Chinese authorities have said they want to lead the world in what it calls the ‘low-altitude economy’.