The flying car is not a new idea. As early as 1937, humankind has built the first flying car, and this flying car can also successfully take off. At that time, because the plane has just been introduced, this new flying machine unfortunately died. Then, there are many predecessors to explore the flying car. Until 1986, the American Taylor invented the flying car. Until 1986, the flying car invented by the American Taylor received a government flight license, marking the official acceptance of the flying car market!
However, in the era of the carper capita occupancy rate is not so huge, people seem to be not so fanatical about flying cars, and the flying car itself has high safety risks, so far, we can no longer see flying cars in life. Until the 21st century, the human living environment is becoming more and more urbanized. The per capita occupancy rate of cars is also growing rapidly, facing the congestion of ground traffic, major car suppliers, and technology companies once again focusing on flying cars!
Recently, the world’s leading car manufacturer Toyota announced that the flying car developed by their company has successfully flown and will be put into mass production in 2023, which is the first flying car announced to be put into mass production, which has stirred up the whole technology and automobile manufacturing industry and made us feel more and more that flying cars are not far away from our lives and will hopefully become a part of our lives in the next decade! In the next decade, it will hopefully become a part of our life!
Although the flying car named SkyDrive in the public test flight record only kept 10 minutes but has achieved an ordinary car think equivalent flexibility, such as vertical takeoff and landing, steering, air hovering, and other operations! And Toyota said they are confident that the flight time of the flying car will be increased to 30 minutes in 2023.
In fact, in the research and development of flying cars, Europe and the United States to start earlier, and major car manufacturers and technology companies have entered the game to start their own research and development of flying cars, there are some flying cars, and even for the market booking, such as the Netherlands PAL-V company developed a flying car, as early as 2017 to open the customer booking, and as early as 2018, someone got a flying car of the keys! Its selling price starts at $400,000!
However, the flying car still doesn’t seem to be strictly a flying car in the public video material, but only a foldable helicopter, as the car still needs a boost to take off, and its shape and wings draw on the design of a small helicopter.
Also already on sale is the Slovakian company’s AeroMobil flying car, which claimed to accept customer reservations back in 2014, but the design and flight principles still haven’t gotten rid of the small aircraft prototype and the market acceptance of this flying car is still not high!
A Canadian start-up company, which developed a flying car called BlackFly, has also obtained a license to use it in the United States, claiming that it is a flying car without a driver’s license and is very easy to get started. But judging from its large wing shape, this is still only a highly energy-efficient flying machine and not a flying car!
Airbus, as one of the world’s largest aircraft manufacturers, has so far developed a number of flying cars, including a modular flying car developed in conjunction with Audi, what is a modular flying car, that is, the vehicle is separated from the car, looks like the operation of a large drone seeding!
Flying cars as the future of the blue ocean market, China in this industry is also not absent; as early as 2017, Geely Automobile, through the acquisition of the famous U.S. flying car developers, bends into the field of flying car manufacturing.
In contrast, the flying car developed by Geely Automobile is closer to people’s fantasy of flying cars, and Geely’s flying car is said to have produced its first batch in volume this year, priced at $2 million, and the first batch will be available in the United States! But so far, this flying car is still classified as a small helicopter. If you want to drive Geely flying car, you still need a flight license!
As internationally renowned as Geely’s flying cars, there is also China’s eHANG’s flying cars, a well-known Chinese drone manufacturer that signed a contract with Dubai back in 2017 and put it on trial in Dubai. eHANG’s unmanned cars allegedly only need to input their destinations and the cars will drive themselves to carry guests to their destinations, and Dubai will reportedly purchase eHANG’s cars as part of the city’s transportation to ease the city’s traffic pressure! But the time to actually put it into use has been repeatedly delayed!
Let’s go back to Japan’s SkyDrive why so many flying cars that have been claimed to be on the market are not as concerned as this one with a flight time of only 10 minutes! This requires us to think carefully about what is a flying car. If only a small aircraft principle flying machine can be called a flying car, then there are few manufacturers who can make such a flying machine! If a real flying car needs to solve the problem of how to hover and land, whether it will affect the ground traffic when driving on the ground, if a flying car needs to run when taking off on the normal traffic route, need to spread the wings, the space it occupies is too large, and so on, this will lead to not replace the car, become a daily travel supply! That’s what makes SkyDrive’s 10 minutes so amazing!
Anyway, dreams are still necessary. Since the Wright brothers invented the first airplane, the dream of human beings to fly freely is destined to come true! I believe that the day when flying cars become a common family car may not be too far away! Kudos to these companies who dare to try!