Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

At the end of the Spring Festival holiday, I believe that many partners, like Xiao Lei, encountered traffic jams during the Spring Festival. On some highways with only two lanes, traffic jams for half an hour to two hours are common, not only during the day, but also at one or two o'clock in the morning. Whenever encounter this kind of situation, Xiao Lei hopes his car can fly, do not ask to fly too far, fly over this section of congested road is enough.

When consumers have demand, some manufacturers will naturally find a way. In March 2009, Transition, the world's first flying car developed by Terrafugia, made its first flight in the United States. In recent years, domestic car company Xiaopeng has also launched the research and development of flying vehicle technology, and the Voyager T1, the first ultra-low-altitude electric vehicle, was unveiled at the Beijing Auto Show in September 2020.

More than two years later, Xiaopeng recently exposed another piece of good news. Voyager X2 became the first manned driving eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) product in China that was successfully approved and was granted a licensed flight license issued by China Civil Aviation Central and South Regional Administration.

Photo Source: Xiaopeng's approval means that under certain circumstances, Xiaopeng Voyager X2 can carry out flight activities and already has commercial potential. After more than a decade of development, the form of flying cars has been basically fixed, that is, land and air amphibious and low-altitude aircraft, perhaps you will be one of them in the future.

Let the car fly, let the passengers say goodbye to the traffic jam, the car is usually driven in a two-dimensional plane, and other vehicles can only make a slow detour in front of sudden road conditions, which is extremely prone to congestion. The sky is different, in addition to before and after the left and right, but also can adjust the position up and down, there is almost no congestion.

At the beginning, Terrafugia developed flying cars, which were also designed to get users out of congested roads. Although flying cars have not become well-known products to the public, the two forms have been basically determined.

When it comes to flying cars, the first form that comes to mind should be amphibious, which has the characteristics of both aircraft and cars, such as Terrafugia products. The advantage of this form is that the energy consumption of flying is higher than that of land driving, and in congested roads, you can turn on flight mode and fly over congested roads. When it comes to non-congested roads, land mode is adopted in order to save energy consumption and ensure mileage.

Image source: because Terrafugia supports land mode, this kind of flying car can choose either vertical take-off and landing or gliding take-off and landing. Vertical take-off and landing is not afraid of traffic jams, there is no need to take off the runway, but high fuel consumption, gliding take-off and landing requires a runway, but low fuel consumption.

The disadvantage of this design is that with two sets of power systems, it takes up more space, the design will be more difficult and the cost will be slightly higher. Just like today's new energy vehicles, some car companies do plug-in hybrid, while others directly choose add-on cars and give up fuel drive modules. As a result, some flying car companies choose the second option to cancel the hardware related to land driving and make low-altitude aircraft similar to helicopters, such as the Xiaopeng Voyager X2.

Photo Source: Xiaopeng Voyager X2 flying car, which no longer has the characteristics of traditional cars, can be regarded as a helicopter Lite, but it is smaller and carries less passengers. The advantage of this form is to save space, reduce the difficulty and cost of design, and the standard vertical take-off and landing, but the disadvantage is that it is less universal, can only fly in the sky, and less applicable scenarios.

Xiaopeng flying car has been granted a special flight license, which shows that flying car has been able to drive normally in the air, but this product has really come into our lives, there are still many difficulties to overcome.

02. Flying cars are not ready. Although flying cars have been developed for decades and the first product has been available for more than a decade, when it comes to hit the road, Xiao Lei can only say that air traffic control departments, enterprises, and consumers are not ready.

In terms of high-altitude flight control, China has reached the international advanced level, but in terms of low-altitude flight control, domestic restrictions are extremely strict. If a car accident occurs on the road, the death rate will not be too high if it is protected by airbags. According to the Bulletin, the death rate of comprehensive road accidents in China in the past three years is 1.8 per 10,000 vehicles.

Photo Source: pixabay is different in the air. If you land at a height of hundreds or even thousands of meters, you will not survive even if you fall to the surface of the water. There is no need to talk about skydiving. It is too risky for ordinary people to jump independently without training. Coupled with the fact that there are many high-rise buildings in the domestic big cities, once the flying car breaks down, it may threaten the life and property safety of the residents below.

Therefore, it was not until 2014 that China's National Air Traffic Control Commission deployed low-altitude flight control reform one after another, and major provinces are also actively promoting low-altitude flight policy changes. As the saying goes, "the strict regulations on airplanes are all bought with blood." the same is true of low-altitude flying. At present, all conditions and rules are not mature. What requirements do drivers have and what driver licenses they need? when there are more flying cars, those areas need to be banned, and so on. It takes time to explore slowly.

In terms of enterprises, the most critical thing is the product. Take the Xiaopeng Voyager X2 as an example, the maximum flight speed is 130 km / h, the flight duration can reach 35 minutes, and the full budget can fly about 75 km. Daily commuting, parked on the roof of the company may be good, cross-city travel is very difficult.

Photo Source: the range of Xiaopeng Terrafugia's flying car can reach 640km, but it needs gliding take-off and landing, and the body is too big, the take-off and landing conditions are too high.

Consumers are only concerned about two issues, safety and price. In theory, cars are more likely to have traffic accidents than airplanes, but when you look at the mortality rate, cars seem to be safer. This can be compared with autopilot, because when the driver friends around them chat, most people say that they do not trust to leave safety entirely to the machine, and that the steering wheel is the most secure in their own hands.

The second is the price. When the Xiaopeng Voyager X2 was publicly displayed for the first time, the exposure price given by Sina Finance was 800000 yuan to 1.5 million yuan, while the price of the Terrafugia flying car was about $280000 (about 1.89 million yuan). You know, domestic popular cars usually cost no more than 200000 yuan, and flying cars worth millions of yuan can only be toys for rich people in a short period of time.

03. The best solution for flying buses and flying cars? In sci-fi movies, Xiao Lei has seen many scenes of flying cars speeding past in the city of the future, but flying is destined to be difficult to popularize until safety and cost are solved.

This can refer to electric cars. Early products are expensive and difficult to use, and only rich people are willing to buy them. Fortunately, cars are destined to be a hot industry, so some car companies tolerate losses and launch low-cost models to expand their audience. Flying cars are different. no one knows when they will grow into a hot industry. If they lose money for a long time, it will be too much for companies and investors to bear.

As a result, Xiao Lei believes that flying buses will be an excellent solution for the early development of flying cars. A large number of flying buses can help enterprises to share the costs at the initial stage, and the routes are fixed, the related facilities are more convenient to configure, and passengers will have sense of security. As for the station, in addition to the transformation of the traditional bus stop, it can also be set on part of the roof of the area to facilitate passengers to commute.

On the one hand, flying buses can be convenient for users; second, the price may be more convenient than taking a taxi, without worrying about traffic jams; third, with flying buses, ordinary buses and bus lanes can be cancelled appropriately, which can alleviate road congestion to a certain extent. The most important thing is that if the flying bus can be used commercially, it will play an incentive role for domestic enterprises and promote the development of the flying automobile industry.

Photo Source: Xiaopeng saw netizens in Zhihu discuss why the development of highways and high-speed rail in the United States is not as good as that in China. Some netizens said that the United States has more than 15000 airports, while China has only more than 600. the United States has a developed aviation industry and does not need high-speed and high-speed rail. First of all, we have to admit that the development of the US aviation industry is earlier than that of China, and it is indeed more developed than China, but the vast majority of these 10,000-odd airports are private airports, and there are only a few hundred airports with regular flights.

Recently, the domestic large aircraft C919 has been confirmed to make its commercial maiden flight on February 28, proving that China's investment in the aviation industry has paid off. If the train of thought of flying public transportation can get through, then the domestic "airport" can also break through 5 digits.

In recent years, the hot electric vehicle industry, the domestic development is also in full swing, BYD's performance is not inferior to the established car companies, Wei Xiaoli is also developing rapidly. Although the era of flying cars is still a long way off, it is always good to lay out them in advance, even if they can only be used on a small scale in the short term.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: Feng Xingxing (ID:fengchuxing2021), author: lost Soul.

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