VW partner builds electric cars with airplane in the trunk – 250 million for Chinese carmaker
It won't be long before series production of electric flying cars could begin in China. A subsidiary of VW partner Xpeng has now received fresh capital for this purpose.
The Chinese electric flying car startup AeroHT receives 250 million US dollars (equivalent to around 214 million euros) in a Series B financing round.
The company intends to use this to advance series production of its modular "Land Aircraft Carrier" vehicle model. This is reported by the "Handelsblatt" newspaper, citing the Chinese news platform Weibo.
A Land Aircraft Carrier is a modular vehicle concept. It combines an electric road vehicle (ground module) and an electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle, also known as an eVTOL (air module), which can be transported within the vehicle. The modular design allows for seamless transition between road and air operations.
This sets AeroHT apart from other air taxi manufacturers , who focus primarily on air operations, while the ground module of the Land Aircraft Carrier can also participate in normal road traffic.
The first version of the planned series production is expected to cost the equivalent of approximately 280,000 US dollars or 240,000 euros .
The company plans to produce around 10,000 land aircraft carriers per year starting in 2026. The shell of the production facility in Guangzhou, northwest of Hong Kong on the Pearl River, is already complete, according to the company.
Aeroht had already raised more than $500 million in 2021. The company also recently introduced a new CFO: Du Chao, a former Deutsche Bank investment banker.
Aeroht is a subsidiary of the Chinese electric car manufacturer Xpeng and is considered the largest flying car company in Asia. Xpeng, in turn, is considered a major player in the Chinese electric car market.
The company also has a partner in Germany: Volkswagen, the German automaker invested around $700 million in Xpeng in 2023, giving it a nearly five percent stake. Xpeng and Volkswagen are also working together—primarily for the Chinese market. Xpeng and Volkswagen are building a joint, state-of-the-art electronic architecture for electric cars, known as the "China Electronic Architecture," or "CEA" for short. This new vehicle IT and software is scheduled to be deployed in a wide range of vehicles starting in 2026, improving digitalization, autonomous driving, and the efficiency of VW models in China. The partnership also includes the shared use and expansion of fast-charging networks in China.
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