The Peasants Didn’t Just Build Better Cars — They Built Cars That Fly

By Team Dailyrevs April 21, 2025

Chinese automakers aren’t just making EVs that undercut global rivals — they’re quietly preparing for a world where cars don’t just drive… they fly.
While the West kept flying cars in sci-fi and streaming platforms, China’s engineers were building them for cities that actually need them.
This didn’t happen overnight. It’s the result of long-term planning, vertical integration, and a kind of urgency the rest of the world hasn’t quite matched.

From the Punchline to the Launchpad

A few years ago, the idea of China leading the global auto industry would’ve raised eyebrows — or laughs — in more than a few Western boardrooms.
Remember “peasants with rockets”? It wasn’t just a political jab. It was a mindset.

China, many believed, could build fast, but not well.
Good at volume. Not at vision. Quick to copy, slow to lead.

And yet — here we are.

Chinese automakers now dominate electric vehicle production, command critical parts of the battery supply chain, and lead global design from studios in Italy, Germany, and California. And if that wasn’t enough, they’ve taken a step that still sounds absurd in most of the world: they’re building cars that fly.

And this isn’t press release theater.
This is real hardware, already demonstrated in public.

In the West: Flying Cars Stayed in Fiction

If you grew up in the West, you’ve seen flying cars.
Just not on highways.

They lived on TV — The Jetsons, Back to the Future, Blade Runner, maybe a few wild concepts at CES. In every case, they were symbolic. The future, yes — but also kind of a joke. Always coming soon. Always just beyond the next innovation.

But they never showed up.

In China, something different happened. While the rest of us debated timelines and legislation, a company called Xpeng AeroHT got to work — not just designing a flying car, but actually testing it, over real terrain, with real engineering behind it.

While flying cars in the West were still locked in YouTube animations, in China they were already getting regulatory pathways and logistical frameworks.

They didn’t treat flying cars like science fiction.
They treated them like infrastructure.

Meet the Car That Lifts Off

Yes, it drives. Yes, it flies.

The modular flying car from Xpeng AeroHT is essentially a road-capable electric vehicle with a transformation trick: it deploys rotor arms and lifts vertically.
Not in a vague “one day” sense.
In a demonstrated, functional, 2025-aimed production sense.

You can read more on their official announcement: Xpeng AeroHT

Why Flying Cars Actually Make Sense in China

In the West, flying cars are often positioned as a luxury fantasy — a toy for billionaires or the final boss of tech ambition.

But in China, flying cars might be on the edge of becoming urban necessity.

This is a country that has:

Cities expanding vertically faster than traffic systems can adapt
Constant urban congestion in megacities like Shenzhen and Chengdu
Built entire “smart cities” from scratch — the kind of places where flying vehicles aren’t gimmicks, they’re solutions
Regional governments already experimenting with tiered mobility (ground, elevated rail, air)

So, when Xpeng says flying cars are coming soon, they’re not chasing headlines.
They’re responding to demand their own infrastructure created.

On the Ground, They’ve Already Won the EV Race

It’s easy to focus on flying cars and forget one thing: China already won the last race — the EV one.

BYD, NIO, XPeng, Zeekr, MG — they’re not just making EVs that compete; they’re building cars that beat the competition on price, features, and sometimes even design.
Their supply chains aren’t spread across seven countries and three continents. They’re vertically integrated, efficient, and government-aligned.
They control the minerals, make the batteries, write the code, and in many cases, design the car in Europe and build it in China.

While legacy automakers race to figure out their EV profit margins, Chinese cars are already selling — in Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and increasingly… everywhere.

GAC CC4 Displayed In Milan Design Week, where GAC is now one of the most prominent brands making their presence.

The Western Dilemma: Stuck in Committee

While Chinese automakers are:

Rolling out flying car test fleets
Signing new lithium extraction deals
Building EVs at a pace no one else can match...

Much of the West is:

Still fighting over how to regulate EV chargers
Arguing over whether heated seats should be a $20/month subscription
Running flashy concept videos that never quite get off the ground

Flying cars? They’re still mostly a subplot in a Netflix series.

The Reality Shift

You don’t have to like it.
But it’s happening.

Just like with EVs, the flying car story might not unfold in the places we expected. It might not wear a Silicon Valley badge. And it might not look like a sci-fi movie.

But it’s real.
It’s being funded, tested, and delivered — not decades from now, but in the next 24 months.

Final Thought

Flying cars didn’t come out of Cupertino.
They didn’t launch in Stuttgart.
And they didn’t get teased on stage at CES by someone in smart glasses.

They came — surprisingly, undeniably — from a country the industry once dismissed as incapable of original thinking.

Because the peasants didn’t just build better cars.
They built cars that fly.

Editor’s Note

At DailyRevs.com, we’re not electric car fanatics.
We’re not anti-ICE. And we’re certainly not here to wave flags for any one country.

What we are — is honest about what’s happening in the car world.

Yes, China has built bad cars in the past. Plenty of them. But what’s remarkable is how fast they’ve worked to fix it — improving, iterating, and in many cases, leapfrogging expectations.

We also acknowledge that it hasn’t all been clean.
Some brands — like Huawei’s EV division — have been known to manipulate certain facts, as we’ve covered before. That’s part of the story too, and it deserves scrutiny.

But what’s equally true is this:
China’s automotive rise has been real, strategic, and astonishingly fast.

We believe in a future where electric cars and combustion engines can coexist. Projects like Porsche’s e-fuel research give us hope that the soul of driving doesn’t have to be sacrificed in the name of progress.

What doesn’t sit right with us — is a politician, or anyone for that matter, labeling an entire nation of engineers, designers, and builders as “peasants.”
Regardless of where you stand politically, China didn’t deserve that insult.

Not because they’re perfect.
But because they’ve earned the right to be taken seriously.

And anyone watching the industry closely… already knows that.

Sources : IEA Global EV Outlook 2024

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence

BloombergNEF

Xpeng AeroHT Flying Car Announcement

OICA