![]() These quality and value improvements have boosted the strength of local brands, enabling some to raise their prices and increase their bottom lines. Local cars have also gained a reputation among customers as value leaders, offering features costing 25 to 35 percent more on comparable joint-venture brands. In 2010, an 89-point initial quality gap existed between local and international brands by 2016, it had fallen to 14 points. Perhaps the local brands’ most dramatic improvement has occurred in product quality. ![]() What’s more, they captured this growth from global automakers of nearly every nationality, not from a single segment of weak players. For instance, Chinese domestic brands as a group increased their share of the passenger-vehicle market to 38 percent in 2016, from 32 percent in 2014-a huge feat when the market itself was undergoing double-digit yearly growth. Local brands have begun to exhibit real competitiveness based on vehicle designs and quality levels, strengthening their brand images and likely leading to larger market shares. While global automakers have enjoyed the fruits of the expansion of China’s automotive market with little meaningful domestic competition, this could soon change. As for worries that continued growth in the car market could turn the country into a parking lot, China already has the world’s longest highway network, which it continues to expand. Furthermore, the government could support future demand with additional tax-policy interventions if necessary. While a new vehicle cost three years’ wages in 2010, estimates for 2020 cut that figure in half. For example, per capita vehicle distribution remains low compared with developed nations such as Germany and the United States, and cars are also becoming more affordable. Advocates say flying cars could revolutionize urban transport, making roads less busy and therefore safer for pedestrians and cyclists, and for electric vehicles like the XPeng X2, also reduce carbon emissions.Yet some indicators appear to suggest that the market is simply catching its breath for another sprint. The benefits of flying cars like the XPeng X2 are further reaching than just realizing wild pop-culture dreams. There are dozens of flying cars currently in development around the world, and many of them actually fly, like Canadian firm Opener’s “BlackFly,” SkyDrive Inc’s “SD-03” and Klein Vision’s prototype “AirCar” – which made a successful 35-minute test-flight between two cities in Slovakia last year. However, XPeng says it’s safer for its flying car is to be self-driving than to be driven by a human. Many people are still concerned with safety issues around self-driving cars on the ground, let alone vehicles that are zooming around above their heads. The self-driving elements pose further difficulties with regulation, and also throw into question public acceptance. “It learns how to avoid traffic, avoid buildings and people,” says Liu. If flying wasn’t futuristic enough, the XPeng X2 is equipped with AI automation – it can be driven manually or it can be set to self-drive. The company behind the XPeng X2 is hopeful that flying cars will be available for public use in just five years. This lines up pretty well with ambitious plans from the Chinese government to launch flying taxis by 2025. XPeng plans to work with governments to establish a physical regulatory infrastructure for flying cars in urban areas, and Liu believes that people will be able to use the flying cars within limited regulated spaces in just five years. The vehicle, designed to carry two passengers, is fully electric and its makers say it can rise through the air at around two meters per second and reach speeds of up to 80 miles per hour.Īlthough the test flight lasted just 90 seconds, according to Liu Xinyin, chief aviation specialist at XPeng Aeroht, the technology is close to being ready for public use, but regulations around flying cars are still some way off. The XPeng X2 lifts vertically off the ground using eight propellers, without need for a runway and is therefore suitable for built-up urban areas. Last week the Chinese XPeng X2 successfully completed the first public test flight of its two-seater flying car at GITEX technology expo in Dubai – and it even shares the DeLorean’s famous gull-wing door design. Whilst flying cars aren’t yet filling our skies, a number are in development. Towards the end of the 1985 sci-fi classic “Back to the Future,” the archetypal mad inventor Doc Brown announces “where we’re going, we don’t need roads” as the time-travelling DeLorean lifts into the air.
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