XPeng’s CEO and ARIDGE’s founder praise Tesla’s flying Roadster

XPeng’s chief executive He Xiaopeng and Zhao Deli, founder of the flying-car maker ARIDGE, both praised Tesla’s new Roadster on 16 October, after Tesla showed a version of it briefly flying at its unveiling. He Xiaopeng called it “a very cool, different kind of flying car” on Weibo. Whether it reaches customers, he wrote, depends on flight safety and figures such as range, and nobody anywhere can avoid flight certification, a long job he hopes will go faster. Zhao Deli called its catapult-style take-off highly creative and said the video appeared to use jetpack technology like the one flown at the opening of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Zhao Deli also wrote that nobody believed ARIDGE’s flying-car story before; now that Musk has flown one, everyone does. In a later post, Zhao Deli wrote that in 50 years flying cars will fill the sky. Certification is the stage ARIDGE is in: China’s aviation regulator accepted the design-approval application for the Land Aircraft Carrier’s aircraft in March 2024 and named ARIDGE on its first proposed fast-track list for certification in July 2026. In August Zhao Deli said ARIDGE aims to deliver in 2027.