XPeng believes that the flying car market will be twice as big as the car market in a couple of decades

The Chinese startup XPeng is not limited to producing electric cars and developing autopilot technologies for them. The company is betting on humanoid robots and the market for electric aircraft. The latter, according to the founder of XPeng, will double the classic automobile market in terms of cash turnover within a couple of decades, reaching $2 trillion per year.

Image source: Xpeng

It’s this confidence that, according to the South China Morning Post, is driving XPeng CEO and founder He Xiaopeng to announce $413 million in investment in electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft this year alone at the China EV100 conference. The company is building a factory in Guangzhou to manufacture such aircraft that will begin operations in 2026 and will be able to assemble 10,000 eVTOLs annually.

As He Xiaopeng noted, although currently such small aviation in terms of production volumes corresponds to only 3-5% of the automobile market, in monetary terms it already claims to be as much as 20%. In the next twenty years, according to him, the turnover of the electric aircraft market will grow to $2 trillion, twice exceeding the annual revenue of the automobile segment.

The Chinese electric vehicle business itself is becoming unsatisfactory due to growing competition and falling profits. According to Fitch forecasts, the Chinese electric vehicle market will grow by 15% or 20% at most this year, while last year it demonstrated growth of 40% and accounted for 65% of global sales of electric passenger vehicles. This year, the battle in the Chinese car market will be waged around intelligent functions of cars, including autopilot. XPeng promises to bring humanoid robots to the market by the end of 2026, so the company’s business diversification will not be limited to flying vehicles alone.