Author | Wang Xiaojun

Editor | Zhou Zhiyu

The booming trillion-dollar low-altitude market has now seen players from the automotive sector increasing their investments.

On December 18, Guangzhou Automobile Group held the launch event for the Guangzhou flying car brand and new products, officially unveiling its new flying car brand - GOVY high domain. At the same time, GOVY's first composite wing flying car, GOVY AirJet, made its debut.

This indicates that Guangzhou Automobile Group's layout in the low-altitude travel field has entered a specific product stage.

By entering the flying car sector, Guangzhou Automobile Group aims to build an end-to-end low-altitude three-dimensional travel system based on flying car products and multi-dimensional transportation scenarios, achieving seamless coverage of ground transportation and low-altitude travel.

In the Robo-AirTaxi system, Guangzhou Automobile Group will rely on the advantages of intelligent connected new energy vehicles' ground travel services to meet the diverse travel needs of users from the ground to low altitude.

For short-distance cross-city travel needs within 20 km, the multi-rotor flying car GOVY AirCar will be used; for medium to short-distance travel needs within 200 km, the composite wing flying car GOVY AirJet can enhance rapid movement between transportation hubs and cities, improving intercity traffic efficiency.

Leveraging geographical advantages, Guangzhou Automobile Group's Robo-AirTaxi will also expand the "South China Greater Bay Area 40-minute living circle", achieving fast, safe, and economical intercity connectivity.

The current product GOVY AirJet utilizes an 8-axis 8-rotor configuration with dual ducted fans, combined with a power supply and Control System featuring multiple redundancy designs, ensuring that the flying car remains stable and controllable even if a core component fails. For flying cars, a Lightweight design is also important; over 90% of the GOVY AirJet's overall structure uses Carbon Fiber composite materials.

In terms of the core 'three electrics', GOVY AirJet is equipped with a high-performance electric drive system independently developed by Guangzhou Automobile Group, with the motor's torque density increased by 200% compared to Electric Machines for electric vehicles, and a maximum flying speed reaching 250 km/h. Additionally, GOVY AirJet adopts a high-safety battery pack made of Carbon Fiber with an integrated efficiency of 82% and a high-density power supply system.

Regarding endurance, GOVY AirJet achieves a range of over 200 km and supports a 30-minute rapid recharging, catering to the travel needs between cities in the South China Greater Bay Area. In the future, with the adoption of Guangzhou Automobile Group's Solid State Battery, the range is expected to increase to 400 km.

At the press conference, it was also revealed that a plan will be initiated in 2025 to launch airworthiness certification for flying car products, while also establishing production lines and starting reservations to gradually advance the commercialization of low-altitude travel.

With the introduction of flying cars, Guangzhou Automobile Group will become a technology group integrating New energy Fund, Asia Vets, Self-Driving Cars, humanoid robots, and flying cars in various cutting-edge fields.

In the trillion-dollar low-altitude competition, players in the Industry Chain of the automotive sector are no longer newcomers.

Recently, Xiaopeng Motors' ecological business Xiaopeng Huitian has been active, with its so-called "land aircraft carrier" split flying car now having received 3,000 orders.

Chongqing Changan Automobile also announced a flying car-related project recently, planning to simultaneously develop two forms of products and their industries in the flying car field: low-altitude aircraft and flying cars, with plans to launch flying car products by 2026.

In August, Ning Wang also invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Shanghai Peak Fly Aviation Technology Co., Ltd., which is also a representative enterprise of eVTOL (electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing aircraft).

According to data released by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, by 2025, the low-altitude economy market size will reach 1.5 trillion yuan. Former deputy director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, Li Jian, stated that in the future, the size of the low-altitude economy will be roughly 3.2 times that of the high-altitude economy. The economic scale of the existing civil aviation high-altitude transportation network in China is 17 trillion yuan, which estimates the potential of the low-altitude economy to reach 50 trillion yuan.

In such a highly competitive automotive industry, it is understandable that car companies are increasingly investing in new businesses to find a second curve outside of autos.

With the participation of giants such as Guangzhou Automobile Group and the continuation of policies, flying cars are expected to change future transportation methods and will become a new economic form, with growth potential that the market looks forward to.

The following is the edited transcript of the dialogue with Dean Wu Jian, Dr. Su Qingpeng, and Dr. Wang Linlin from Guangzhou Automobile Group Research Institute:

Question: From the current development of the low-altitude economy, what stage is the entire industry in? What are the main problems and obstacles it faces? Additionally, besides the automotive industry and Technology industry, what other industries will be impacted by the low-altitude economy?

Su Qingpeng: Regarding the low-altitude economy, I believe it is primarily an economic form that requires scaling up and needs support from new productivity developments. It combines the low-altitude sector with the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries, aiming to solve problems that ground solutions cannot address, thereby expanding the two-dimensional ground economy into a three-dimensional economy.

Throughout the development process, I believe the low-altitude economy will be divided into three stages. The first stage is exemplified by the manned transportation we are currently engaged in, starting with tourism and short-distance travel experience economy. Next, it will gradually enter the second stage, where aerial taxis become a reality. By the third stage, it is expected that by 2030, aerial travel will become a common means of transportation. Currently, we are in the first stage and gradually entering the second stage.

The main issues currently faced include the inadequacy of regulations and standards, ambiguity in policies and regulations, imperfect infrastructure, and how to solve the challenge of creating high safety and low-cost products. However, we are also confident in the formulation of policies and the government's role in unifying this aspect. Regarding the impact of the low-altitude economy on other industries, I believe it will promote the integration and development of the aviation industry with the automotive and tourism industries, among others.

Question: What is the background of Guangzhou Automobile Group's launch of flying cars? What does this mean for consumers?

Wu Jian: Guangzhou Automobile Group is committed to realizing the beautiful dream of future human mobility and is undergoing transformations in various aspects, including three-dimensional travel. In June of last year, we officially released the multi-rotor separated flying car technology. Of course, there are still many technical challenges we have yet to overcome, such as the energy density of batteries and how to achieve a combination of travel convenience and low energy consumption.

To solve these problems, we are engaging in original or integrated innovation, applying aerodynamics technology from the aviation industry to flying cars to reduce energy consumption and improve endurance. Our goal is to cover areas like the Greater Bay Area and the CNI Yangtze Index, where river networks are dense, requiring cross-land mobility.

At the same time, Guangzhou Automobile Group is developing the next generation of battery technology, which will have double the energy density of current battery technology. By that time, I believe the Greater Bay Area will be able to fully cover ecological applications for flying cars.

Question: What difficulties did the Guangzhou Automobile Group's composite wing flying car encounter during the research and development process? What innovations were made in this process?

Wang Linlin: In fact, flying cars are a natural extension of the new four transformations of Autos. From the development of three electric technologies, intelligent driving to complex systems, Guangzhou Automobile Group has extensive experience and a solid foundation. At the same time, we have also introduced a large number of aviation talents. There have been no technical difficulties encountered in the development process of flying cars.

During the research and development process, we focused on flight safety. For example, we have adopted 8 power systems to ensure that safety and controllability are maintained even if 1-2 power systems fail. Our power Battery is also multi-pack, and the failure of any single pack will not affect the overall power output.

Question: For the flying car project, it requires a significant amount of funding. When the decision was made to launch this project, was there an expectation of when it would become profitable? Additionally, will we consider listing this project in the future?

Wu Jian: Regarding profitability, I believe that as the flying car technology continues to mature and market demand increases, this project will definitely achieve good economic and social benefits. As for the issue of listing, we are also considering it, but there are currently no specific plans.

Question: How does the Guangzhou Automobile Group Research Institute promote development in emerging fields?

Wu Jian: In terms of layout in emerging fields, our Guangzhou Automobile Group Research Institute has always adhered to the development concept of "maintaining one generation, developing one generation, reserving one generation, and researching one generation." We have established a series of forward-looking technology research projects and cooperated with national ministries, universities, and other organizations to carry out major research projects.

At the same time, we also focus on creating an innovative atmosphere and stimulating the innovative vitality of young engineers. We have established innovation incentive mechanisms such as Youth Fund and Doctoral Fund to encourage young employees and doctoral teams to conduct research and innovation in cutting-edge technologies.

Through the implementation of these measures, we have gradually achieved a series of important innovative results. In the future, we will continue to increase investment and layout efforts in emerging fields, promoting the innovative development of the Guangzhou Automobile Group Research Institute to new heights.

Question: As a brand new low-altitude travel ecological brand, what are your expectations and plans for it as its founder?

Su Qingpeng: Guangzhou Automobile Group has always been committed to becoming a creator of mobile life value, adding value to the beautiful mobile life of humanity. We will continue to focus on human-centered travel needs and develop core technologies. We will insist on mastering key core technology resources, relying on our mature customer operation platform and the integrated industry chain and ecological circle of Guangzhou Automobile Group to promote the research and development of low-altitude technology. Our aircraft products will serve as the core, dedicated to enhancing the convenience and efficiency of low-altitude flight.

Question: Which groups are primarily targeted for promotion? Is it the government, businesses, or individuals? Also ask, who will hold the operating rights?

Su Qingpeng: Currently, our main promotional group is mainly B-end, while C-end will be relatively less. As we all know, the auto industry is undergoing electrification, intelligence, networking, and sharing. One notable feature of sharing is technological inclusiveness and equity, meaning that people don’t need to purchase themselves but can enjoy the convenience brought by technology through payment. Therefore, we will primarily focus on B-end in the early stages and gradually promote the landing of C-end products.

The operating rights belong to the operating party. The operation of the self-driving aircraft involves various aspects such as production scheduling algorithms, inter-departmental cooperation, data tools, and autopilot instruments. All of these require the operating company to collaborate with other relevant parties to develop and implement.

Question: Will the large-scale commercialization of self-driving happen faster in cars or in flying cars?

Wang Linlin: In the automotive field, the diversified regulations on the ground and complex road conditions will pose some policy risks for the implementation of autonomous driving technology. In the aviation field, although there are certain limitations in airspace management, the space in the air is relatively vast, with fewer collision risks or sudden non-cooperative targets compared to the ground. Therefore, from a technical perspective, flying cars may achieve full automation first. However, legal factors must also be considered.

Wu Jian: Everyone has experience flying on an airplane. Aside from the takeoff and landing phases, most of the time during the cruising stage is done with autopilot. Therefore, it can be said that in the sky, self-driving has already been realized. Our flying cars combine the autonomous driving technology of cars with vertical takeoff and landing technology, capable of achieving autopilot in both the cruising stage and the takeoff and landing processes, already possessing the ability for full-process autonomous driving.