Xpeng, a Chinese competitor of Tesla, built a flying car that looks very different from the electric vehicle

There are so many companies now moving towards making flying cars. It’s as though flying car projects are fast becoming of interest like electric cars were before now. A Chinese electric vehicle company, a rival of Tesla, has now debuted its first-ever flying car with the most absurd look. But the car actually works.

The flying car prototype, known as X3, looks like a regular car, except with a huge version of the rotors you’d see on a regular drone. This makes the flying car look like a great toy.

In a video the company shared of the car, the X3 gradually lifts itself off the ground and hovers at a height of over 30 feet. Once it got some stability, the X3 slowly flew forward and even managed to turn around and return to its starting point, where it landed smoothly.

The X3 flying car weighs 4,300 pounds; a lot of that weight is probably the battery weight. For it to be able to fly at all with that weight is a great achievement on the company’s side.

The flying car has an eccentric design, but it’s airworthy. The car’s body is long, likely to accommodate the massive rotors, but it makes the X3 look like a helicopter.

According to Insider, the X3 is roadworthy, which is not true for most flying cars. As impressive as it might be, Futurism notes that Xpeng’s X3 is not quite at the level of Jetsons yet. Interestingly, this X3 isn’t only Xpeng’s flying car. In October, the company debuted its X3 prototype in Dubai.