A Ruler Takes Delivery of a Flying Car: XPeng AeroHT Land Aircraft Carrier Heads to the UAE

Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, Ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, visited XPeng AeroHT manufacturing plant in China and officially took delivery of an initial production-grade Land Aircraft Carrier eVTOL (X3-F) intended for deployment in the United Arab Emirates, according to a Gasgoo report published October 31, 2026. The vehicle is a split-body modular design: an all-wheel-drive 6x6 ground carrier paired with a detachable two-seat electric vertical takeoff and landing flight module. The system is priced under RMB 2 million.

The aircraft will operate under a regulatory sandbox overseen by the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority, which will evaluate airworthiness standards and potential inter-emirate flight routes. That sandbox framing matters: this is not yet a commercial air-taxi service with tickets on sale, but a government-supervised trial in which regulators, routes and safety standards are developed alongside the vehicle itself. Ras Al Khaimah is positioning itself as an early test bed for advanced air mobility in the Gulf.

The delivery is also a statement about where flying-car competition is heading. While American and European eVTOL makers work through FAA and EASA certification, XPeng AeroHT is putting production-grade hardware into the hands of a Gulf government partner willing to build the rules around it. A modular flying car that drives on roads and flies as a separate module solves the last-mile problem differently from a pure air taxi — but it also faces two certification regimes, one for the road and one for the sky. The UAE sandbox will be the first real test of whether that dual approach can work in practice.