XPeng Founder and CEO He Xiaopeng said the first Aridge flying car handed to the United Arab Emirates would “soon begin test flights” in the country’s regulatory pilot zone, without giving a date.
The flying-car maker’s own finance chief has put the start of test operations there at the beginning of 2027 at the earliest.
“Handed over our fully in-house developed AEROHT flying car to friends who traveled a long way to be here,” He wrote on X on Friday. “This Land Aircraft Carrier will soon begin test flights in the UAE’s regulatory pilot zone.”
“It took us 13 years to turn the flying car from a concept into a deliverable reality,” he added.
The aircraft is going abroad before it has a Chinese certificate, and Aridge founder Zhao Deli said in August that the company could not deliver to customers this year.
China’s aviation regulator has not issued a type certificate for the Land Aircraft Carrier’s flying module, and XPeng has not announced one.
A Handover in Guangzhou
The aircraft is the X3-F, the detachable two-seat flying module of the Land Aircraft Carrier, which pairs it with a six-wheeled ground vehicle that carries and charges it.
Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah and a member of the UAE’s Supreme Council, unveiled it with Aridge Founder Zhao Deli at the company’s mass-production plant in Guangzhou earlier this week.
State news agency China News Service described the aircraft as a “test aircraft” that the delegation received on site.
Aridge, the flying-car unit formerly known as XPeng AeroHT, described the event as a delivery to the UAE’s advanced air mobility regulatory sandbox.
“We in Ras Al Khaimah are pleased to be collaborating with ARIDGE on advanced air mobility solutions,” the Sheikh said, according to the company.
What ‘Soon’ Means
Neither He nor Aridge gave a date for the first flight in the UAE on Friday.
Aridge Chief Financial Officer Michael Du told Khaleej Times on Tuesday that test operations in the UAE could begin “as early as the beginning of 2027,” depending on finalizing details of the Ras Al Khaimah sandbox and arrangements for bringing the aircraft into the country.
The program would then be rolled out gradually over six to 12 months, he said. “The sandbox is actually a solid path leading up to the final delivery of the commercial product,” Du said.
Consumer deliveries in the UAE are targeted for late 2027 in an ideal scenario and could slip into early 2028, Du said, adding that the company has not yet actively marketed the product for sale there.
China News Service said sandbox trial operations would begin under the supervision of the UAE’s civil aviation authority once the first batch of test aircraft has been delivered, with certification, cross-emirate route planning and an operating system to follow.
After delivery, the X3-F will undergo pre-certification validation, including flight testing in desert conditions, performance evaluation and the refinement of procedures in controlled airspace, according to Aridge.
The sandbox is run by the Ras Al Khaimah Transport Authority under the oversight of the UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), the company said in September when it signed the cooperation agreement with the emirate.
Aridge also plans a demonstration route between Ras Al Khaimah and Abu Dhabi to test requirements for future inter-emirate services, from flight planning and airspace coordination to passenger handling.
The emirate’s own statement on that agreement did not mention the GCAA, the sandbox or Abu Dhabi, and the GCAA has not commented publicly.
Aridge received a Special Flight Permit from the GCAA in September 2025, which it described as the first for a Chinese flying-car company, and held its first manned public demonstration outside China in Dubai in October 2025.
In September this year, two flying modules flew in formation at Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi during a reception hosted by the Chinese Embassy.
China Certificate Still Pending
The Civil Aviation Administration of China accepted Aridge’s type certificate application for the flying module in March 2024 and its production certificate application in May 2025.
In July this year, Aridge was named among the first companies admitted to the regulator’s fast-track certification process for manned eVTOL aircraft.
The X3-F has completed the regulator’s test flights and reached the TIA (type inspection authorization) stage, but the final certificate is still pending, Du said.
For comparison, EHang’s EH216-S passenger drone received its Chinese type certificate in October 2023.
Zhao said in March that he expected the type certificate in the second half of 2026 and mass deliveries by the end of the year.
By late August he had dropped the delivery goal. “We can’t deliver this year,” he said in an interview, adding that the company was at a critical stage of obtaining airworthiness certification and aimed to start deliveries next year.
He himself flagged the hurdle last week. Reacting to Tesla‘s flying Roadster, he said “no one can get around flight certification, such as type certificates, which is long-term work worldwide,” and that he hoped the pace could speed up.
A Timeline That Has Slipped
XPeng first said in October 2021 that it would start mass-producing a flying car by 2024, at a price below 1 million yuan ($150,000).
After the type certificate application was accepted in March 2024, the company targeted mass production and deliveries in the fourth quarter of 2025. In May 2024, management said it hoped to deliver in 2026, a target repeated at CES in January 2025.
Trial production began at the Guangzhou plant in November 2025, and five flying modules rolled off the line and completed a multi-aircraft test flight on the same day in March. The plant has a nominal capacity of 10,000 flying modules a year, and Aridge said in March that it could roll out one every 30 minutes at full output.
He said in April that pre-orders had passed 7,000, at a price capped below 2 million yuan ($300,000). Du gave a smaller figure, saying Aridge had more than 300 early-stage orders by last year and that annual deliveries could eventually reach several hundred, potentially approaching 1,000. In the Gulf, Aridge signed agreements for 600 units with distributors in the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait during its Dubai demonstration.
Aridge raised nearly $200 million in equity in March, taking its cumulative equity funding to nearly $1 billion, according to KrASIA.
The company traces its roots to 2013, which matches the 13 years He cited, and was formally established in 2020.
It is an XPeng affiliate controlled by He, and it confidentially filed for a Hong Kong initial public offering in January, the South China Morning Post reported.
