XPeng‘s founder and CEO He Xiaopeng praised Tesla’s thruster-equipped Roadster as “a very cool flying car of another form,” but warned that nobody can skip the aviation approvals his own flying-car unit has spent years trying to secure.
Tesla says production will begin in 2028, and its flying Rocket version is invite-only and “Not approved for public road use.”
“Whether it can land still depends on flight safety and specific metrics such as flight parameters, for example endurance,” He wrote on Weibo on Friday, while reposting a video of the Roadster event.
“But no one can get around flight certification, such as type certificates, which is long-term work worldwide,” he added. “I sincerely hope the pace on this can speed up.”
His comments came hours after Tesla showed the second-generation Roadster at SpaceX‘s test site in McGregor, Texas, where it drove upside down, flipped and jumped over a lineup of Tesla vehicles.
A Flying Car Still Waiting for Approval
XPeng has been promising a flying car of its own since at least 2021, and has pushed back its production target several times.
Its flying-car affiliate, now called Aridge and formerly XPeng AeroHT, traces its roots to 2013 and was formally established in 2020 as a majority-owned unit of the carmaker.
In October 2021, the company said it would begin mass production of a flying car by 2024 at a price below 1 million yuan ($149,200), according to Caixin.
The company later shifted its focus to the Land Aircraft Carrier, introduced in 2023, a large ground vehicle that carries a detachable two-seat electric aircraft.
China’s aviation regulator accepted the type certificate application for that aircraft module on March 21, 2024, and the company said at the time it planned to start mass production and deliveries in the fourth quarter of 2025.
In May 2024, then-Co-President Brian Gu told CNBC that the company would take pre-orders that year and hoped to deliver the vehicle in 2026.
XPeng repeated the 2026 delivery target in January 2025, when it showed the vehicle at CES in Las Vegas and said it had more than 3,000 advance orders.
The company has not announced that the type certificate has been granted.
Trial Lines, Test Flights and an Accident
In September 2025, two of the unit’s aircraft were involved in an accident during a rehearsal for an air show in Changchun, and the company said one had been damaged on landing and caught fire.
The unit began trial production at its Guangzhou factory in November 2025 and said mass production and deliveries were scheduled for 2026.
The plant is designed for 10,000 aircraft modules a year, with initial capacity of 5,000.
In March 2026, five units rolled off what the company described as a batch trial production line. The founder said in April that pre-orders had passed 7,000 at a price capped below 2 million yuan ($298,400).
China’s aviation regulator named the unit in July among the first companies admitted to a fast-track certification process for manned electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.
Aridge founder Zhao Deli has said he expects the type certificate in the second half of this year and deliveries by year-end, while Reuters has reported early deliveries late in 2026 and full-scale deliveries in 2027.
An XPeng Group Vice President (who posts on Weibo as 托马斯电火车) and who filmed He testing Tesla’s FSD in Paris earlier this week commented on the post.
“The biggest difficulty it faces is that it really isn’t allowed to get license plates. What can you do? 🤣” the VP wrote.
Two Very Different Machines
The two products take opposite approaches to the idea of a flying car.
Tesla’s Rocket version is a single-seat sports car with thrusters “positioned around the perimeter of the vehicle” for upward and rotational movement, which Tesla says can take it from 0 to 60 mph in under 0.59 seconds.
Tesla has not said how long the car can stay airborne, and Vice President of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy said the thrusters run on about 600 liters of rechargeable compressed air.
The Rocket is invite-only and has no public price, while reservations for the Performance and Thrust versions cost $50,000 and $250,000.
Aridge’s Land Aircraft Carrier pairs a six-wheel-drive ground vehicle, which it calls a “mothership,” with a detachable two-seat aircraft that uses six rotors and two ducts, according to the company’s product page.
The ground vehicle runs on an 800-volt range-extender platform with a combined CLTC range of more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles), and a full charge of its onboard station allows up to six flights, Aridge says.
Neither has reached customers, and both still face regulators before their headline features can be used on public roads or in the air.
From Self-Driving Bets to Flying Cars
The Roadster post is the latest in a long run of public comments by He on Tesla, most of them about self-driving.
After testing Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software in California in mid-2024, He said FSD “performed extremely well in Silicon Valley and on highways,” while Waymo did better in San Francisco.
When Tesla rolled out a version of FSD in China in February 2025, He wrote on X, “we warmly welcome global leaders like Tesla.”
In December 2025, after testing FSD V14.2 and Tesla’s Robotaxi in the San Francisco Bay Area, He said the software had evolved into “a reassuring, quasi‑L4 software stage.”
XPeng’s chief then made what he called “An Interesting Bet” with his autonomous-driving team.
If XPeng’s system in China matched FSD V14.2’s overall performance in Silicon Valley by August 30, 2026, he would build a Chinese-style cafeteria in Silicon Valley, and if not, autonomous-driving chief Liu Xianming had “promised to streak across the Golden Gate Bridge.”
On August 27, He declared the bet won on Weibo, writing, “Congratulations, the Silicon Valley canteen is coming!”
In the same post he said XPeng’s second-generation system was on par with “world-class products” on main roads and better in complex settings such as narrow streets and parking lots, though he did not publish test data.
Side by Side in Paris
The two companies most recently met at the Paris Motor Show, where they were the only carmakers offering public self-driving rides on city streets.
“I also tried Tesla FSD. Both FSD and NGP have made impressive progress, each with its strengths,” He wrote on X on Thursday.
“At XPENG, we believe our larger models give NGP stronger generalization across diverse driving scenarios,” he added. “Competition drives progress. Users win.”
The rivalry also extends to humanoid robots, where XPeng’s IRON competes with Tesla’s Optimus.
