Watching The World’s First Flight of the NAVEE WaveFly 5X in Suzhou, China

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Electric rideables continue to proliferate around the world, and one company from Suzhou, China, is really pushing the limits on what’s possible with an electric rideable.

Disclaimer: the author’s travel and accommodations were paid for by iMpact PR as part of a tour of companies they work with in China.

A Host of Offerings

NAVEE isn’t new to the electric mobility game. We’ve reviewed one of their scooters, but NAVEE have a wide range of electric vehicle offerings.

They make everything from small electric scooters for children up to electrified wagons to haul your groceries home, e-bikes, electric motorcycles; and now the company is launching an electric flying drone boat thing called the NAVEE WaveFly 5X. I took a rip on their electric dirt bike at the event without even kicking it into sport mode, and it nearly bucked me off.

A New Category

NAVEE invited us out to Suzhou, China, to be some of the first people in the world to see the NAVEE WaveFly 5X take flight for the first time. The WaveFly 5X is a hybrid between a personal watercraft and a small airplane with 4 electric propellers and a pair of wings.

It floats on the surface when it’s powered down, but the real action starts when you fire up the four electric motors sitting on each of the corners. The prototype they used for the first flight on the water was only equipped with the front two motors, and their graphics show the WaveFly 5X kitted out with 2 and 4 motors, so it’s not clear how many motors and rotors the production version will actually have. Either way, the motors operate much like on a compact drone, but with the assistance of a front and rear wing. The combination represents the world’s first Wing-in-Ground effect craft for the average Joe.

The wings and motors work together to keep the vehicle “flying” along at 12–32 inches above the water on a cushion of air. It’s an insane concept that looks and acts a lot like a hovercraft, just with a fully reimagined concept of propulsion and creating an air cushion.

The resulting experience — which we were some of the first people in the world outside of the company to see in person — looks a lot like an airplane skimming along the surface of the water. It’s super smooth and looks like it would be a ton of fun to whip around in with an experienced pilot behind the wheel. The way it drifts around turns and cruises smoothly across the water was truly impressive to see.

It has a max speed of 85 km an hour with a range of 80 km on a single charge. It has two seats and shuttles around a Max capacity of 140 kg. That probably won’t cut it for two Americans, but it’s a decent starting place for this new type of vehicle.

The WaveFly 5x is actually a really unique flying vehicle in that it uses its electric motors and pair of wings. Not to fly but to zip along the surface of the water. Check out the video below for a look at its first flight in Suzhou.

NAVEE says the WaveFly 5X is intended to fly just inches off the surface of the water. This lets it skip over the turbulence and rough ride often created by small waves in the ocean. I think the real question in people’s minds is what happens when it’s time to traverse larger waves or in rougher conditions.

We’ll have to wait to see what a production version will actually do out on the water and what licenses, approvals, and insurance regulators require customers to acquire before heading out to their local body of water. One thing is for sure though — the NAVEE WaveFly 5X breaks out of any traditional category of vehicle and we can’t wait to get behind the wheel of one.

Overall

It seems like an insane vehicle to build but one that would be super fun to rip around in as well. I love how it drifts around corners much like a jet boat but with less resistance. The NAVEE website currently shows a price of $279,000 with an option to put down $10,000 to get the process started, so it’s definitely something geared towards luxury resorts and the 1%ers, but it probably wasn’t cheap to develop either, so that’s fair.

New technologies and products drop in price over time, so here’s to hoping we can get one for $20,000 in 5 years so the rest of us can have a rip in one. Until then, we’ll be watching NAVEE work to move the WaveFly 5X into production as it begins to navigate inevitably complex international waters on the road to global exports.

Will the WaveFly 5X be treated as a flying vehicle or as a watercraft by regulators? Who knows? Will you need a pilot license or just your typical watercraft approval before getting behind the wheel? And how the heck will you learn to fly or drive one? This is clearly just the start of the process, but what an exciting launch it was!

For more information about NAVEE or the WaveFly 5X, head over to their official website.