These 4 Chinese flying car companies are winning the race to dominate an industry that’ll be worth $150 billion by 2035

• Chinese-owned companies are leading the flying car industry.
• The industry could be worth $150 billion by 2035.
• Here are the 4 Chinese companies racing to cash in on the business of flying cars.

In recent years, Chinese companies have been at the forefront of the shift to electric driving, pushed along by government mandates, public appetite to go greener, and billions of dollars of investment.

And now, Chinese companies are racing to cash in on another kind of electric vehicle that’s set to take off: the flying car.

China is especially poised to benefit from the electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL, vehicle market, which is expected to hit $150.9 billion by 2035, according to PitchBook. The firm says VCs have invested $640.9 million into a variety of Chinese eVTOL companies this year alone, partly because of the region’s acute need for more transportation options.

“The mobility problem and how it’s solved here is going to take on a much more diverse set of solutions simply because the population density and the ability to navigate on the ground is so much more complicated,” Bill Russo, CEO of Shanghai-based advisory firm Automobility, told Insider.

In the US, companies like Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation are attracting capital, but experts say China is especially poised to dominate this emerging space.

"The Chinese companies have some sort of advantage in that China has access to low-cost commodities and low-cost manufacturing and a relatively self-contained supply chain," said Dario Constantine, senior associate at air mobility VC firm Levitate Capital. "The fast-growing middle class is going to be able to drive demand for these eVTOL services once they come into operations that can, within China itself, become a large industry."

Here are four Chinese companies that are cashing in on the business of flying cars.

Geely

Geely - the Chinese automaker and Volvo parent company - is pursuing urban air mobility development through several avenues. It saw promise in buying flying car startup Terrafugia in 2017, and investing in German air taxi developer, Volocopter, two years later.

Geely is capitalizing on the expertise of both. It formed a joint venture, called Aerofugia, with Terrafugia, and is now helping Volocopter establish operations in China with the JV. Based in Chengdu, Aerofugia will buy 150 Volocopter aircraft in a bid to take advantage of the budding Chinese eVTOL market.

Volocopter's CEO Florian Reuter said in a statement that China is "the biggest single market opportunity" for air taxis. Geely brings legacy manufacturing expertise to the flying car space, an advantage to Aerofugia and Volocopter.

"These VTOLs, if you're building them at scale, you'll need to build a lot of them and build a lot of them efficiently," Constantine said. "That's where an automotive manufacturer could be helpful."

EHang

EHang has long been considered the leader in Chinese eVTOLs. Founded in 2014, it has a valuation of $1.3 billion, one of just six eVTOL unicorns across the globe, according to early stage venture capital firm Phystech Ventures.

Its flagship flyer, the EHang 216, is an autonomous, two-seat, low altitude vehicle for passenger and cargo use, of which the company sold 18 in the first half of this year. The 216 is currently undergoing extensive certification processes before delivery.

Designed for short-to-medium range intra-city air mobility, according to the company, the EHang 216 can travel at about 80 miles per hour with a maximum payload range of 21 miles. EHang also recently demonstrated its VT-30 passenger autonomous air vehicle, designed for longer range urban air mobility - 186 miles range in 100 minutes.

Xpeng

Xpeng, a known leader in China's EV market, has forayed into air taxis by backing flying car startup HT Aero.

HT Aero, based in Guangzhou, just raised $500 million in a Series A, led by Xpeng, IDG Capital, and 5Y Capital, to support development of a flying car that it plans to roll out in 2024.

HT Aero was founded in 2013 and focuses on individual consumer transit rather than targeting the business sector and corporate travelers.

Backing the venture is one way for Xpeng to apply its EV expertise to another form of transportation and to ramp up its stake in Chinese mobility as more of the future looks multimodal.

"What's unique about these new automotive enterprises that have formed, like Xpeng, is they have that DNA of experimentation, of not having a high-bound, multi-decades-long history of thinking about themselves based on the trajectory of where they've been," Russo said. "They have more degrees of freedom."

HT Aero's fifth-generation Xpeng X2 is a two-seat flying vehicle that can travel 80 miles per hour for up to 35 minutes. The Xpeng X2 has some design similarities to the Xpeng P7, the automaker's mid-size sedan, and is conducive to low-altitude urban flight. The company says it can autonomously take-off and land, and is powered by a charging system that leverages Xpeng's existing supercharging technology.

AutoFlight

Founded in 2016, AutoFlight is a dedicated eVTOL company that is developing air transport technology for both cargo and people.

The Shanghai-based startup secured a $100 million Series A funding round in September, the second largest VC deal the space has seen over the past five years.

The company has launched three eVTOLs, including the V50, V400, and V1000CG, each with different payload capacities and applications.

Most notable is AutoFlight's latest development, the V1500M fully electric air taxi. The company is designing the three- or four-seat vehicle to travel at 125 miles per hour with a range of 155 miles.