When the editor tells you that your next story will be published on December 25, naturally the ideas all centre on Christmas. It’s too late to do a gift guide, what about best Christmas driving songs? It’s just Chris Rea, isn’t it?
Then I remembered a visit to China a few weeks ago and a look at what are billed as flying cars. What if something happened to Santa’s sleigh, or is it feasible that governments could ban the reindeer based on their emissions?
Xpeng grabbed my attention when it announced its flying mobility division, Aridge, is going to produce the Land Aircraft Carrier, which goes on sale in the Middle East in the first quarter of 2026 at $300,000. For that you get a six-wheel-drive luxury vehicle with a personal flying drone in the boot that can fly for up to thirty minutes. Admittedly it won’t get Santa around the world overnight, but we all know that a bit of magic can go a long way.
Looking at the topic a bit more seriously, Aridge did start out by building a genuine flying car before deciding that this dream we have of being stuck in traffic and simply taking to the air, won’t work. The issue is that a car needs to have car components, a chassis, suspension and wheels, all of which are a bit heavy. People still keep trying though, including Aeromobil, a Slovakian company that has created a more traditional type of flying car with fold out wings and a hybrid engine. It’s a bit more compact than Aridge’s creation and fulfils the vision of the flying car that Hollywood has been showing us for years.
It’s still not a flying car like those in the movies, ones that look like cars whizzing through the air. The closest you can get to that is the Alef. Designed by former Bugatti and Jaguar designer, Hirash Razaghi, it has sports-car looks and can drive at low speeds through town. Inspired by the DeLorean in Back to the Future, it can hover above traffic and features clever gimbal technology inside to keep passengers level even when the vehicle tilts. The predicted price is $299,000 but while its makers insist it is perfectly safe, I can’t help but think it looks like one of those car-shaped tins of sweets you get in Woolies this time of year. It does mean that a genuine flying car exists and that’s really cool, but I think I see the Alef more as a proof of concept, one that ultimately could lead to vehicles like the Ford Future Generation Concept Car.
Until then, flying mobility solutions are very much on the agenda. Aridge has created a whole range of them, from single-person craft to vast passenger drones with huge rotors, although you have to wonder whether we already have that in the form of a helicopter.
Aridge is not alone of course — even Uber was promising that we would be able to order a drone to come and pick us up and fly us over the traffic to work or a dinner party. That was the dream of Uber Elevate, but the ride-hailing giant sold that in 2021 to a company called Joby Aviation, which does say it still plans to implement the service one day.
Uber’s plan was to use the Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (e-VTOL) craft developed by Hyundai, the SA-1. Hyundai hasn’t given up on the dream, with its Advanced Air Mobility company, Supernal, unveiling SA-2 in 2024. The company says it will make it commercially available in 2028 when its five-person craft will be used to fly passengers between hubs at speeds of up to 180km/h.
If you need to go further and faster, then AutoFlight is promising a 250km range at up to 200km/h. It’s still not around the world, but the company is also thinking about transport hubs, so perhaps the elves can help out.
Of course there are all sorts of barriers to overcome before the airspace over our cities can be full of personal mobility drones or flying cars. There’s legislation, air traffic control issues, infrastructure requirements and whether we will all need a pilot’s licence. It all seems cool, if a bit complicated, but for now Santa doesn’t need to worry: nine reindeer and his sleigh work perfectly fine and we have it on good authority that Rudolph has no plans to retire and be replaced by a drone anytime soon.
Merry Christmas everyone!
