It’s Christmas, and XPeng hasn’t just released a snowy SUV advert to mark the occasion. This year, the Chinese manufacturer has chosen a setting worthy of a science fiction film: a parade in which Father Christmas swaps his traditional sleigh for an XPeng drone. The flying machine was set up on a platform and towed by an XPeng G9 electric SUV, creating a spectacular tableau calibrated for social networks and the festive imagination.
XPeng X2: the eVTOL ‘sled’ of the future
The drone used is not just a Christmas decoration. XPeng is showcasing its X2, an eVTOL electric aerial vehicle developed by its aerial mobility division, the former XPeng AeroHT.
Of course, the aim of the parade was not simply to amaze passers-by; one of the objectives was to showcase the vehicles developed by the brand. Indeed, behind this festive display lurks a very serious demonstrator:
- two-seater configuration designed for low-altitude urban mobility
- 100% electric propulsion
- autonomous or piloted flight capability, depending on usage scenarios
- architecture designed to be integrated over time into an intelligent urban mobility ecosystem.
As stated earlier, XPeng’s role in the parade was strictly event-based: the X2 did not fly, but served as a rolling showcase for these new forms of air mobility, under control and without regulatory risk-taking.
Subtle promotion of the G9
XPeng also took advantage of this exhibition to showcase one of its flagship vehicles: the XPeng G9, its top-of-the-range electric SUV. Already on sale in several markets, it focuses the brand’s strategy on the premium technology segment.
Here, the G9 acts as a symbolic link between today’s terrestrial mobility and tomorrow’s aerial ambitions. In this case, it’s not just an SUV towing a trailer, but the electric car that is literally taking along the prototype of future aerial mobility for the general public.
Technology still in the demonstration phase
Despite the spectacular images and the impression of an operational means of locomotion, XPeng is not yet promising an X2 drone in every garage. At this stage, the device remains an R&D demonstrator, intended to show what the brand is capable of, rather than a product ready for delivery.
At the same time, XPeng is pushing ahead with an even more ambitious project: the « Land Aircraft Carrier », a concept combining a land-based electric vehicle and a removable eVTOL module, with a market launch date of around 2026. Eventually, this type of Christmas scene will become a preview of a real commercial offer, rather than a simple experiment.
Christmas storytelling to support XPeng’s vision
So this operation is more than just an end-of-year marketing stunt. By giving Father Christmas a parade on board a futuristic drone, towed by one of its electric SUVs, XPeng is telling a story: the story of integrated, electric, autonomous and, tomorrow perhaps, aerial mobility, at the heart of everyday life.
By capitalising on a universal imagination (the sleigh, the presents, the parade), the brand is seeking to make its innovations more familiar, less abstract, and to anchor its vision of multimodal mobility in the minds of the general public. It remains to be seen whether, in a few years’ time, this type of scene will be seen as a marketing wink… or as the first images of a new normality.
