The 21st century is already two decades old. Dude, why do we still not have flying cars? Pragmatic souls might reply that, since the heyday of 1950s science fiction, we’ve come to realize that flying cars aren’t particularly practical or particularly necessary, and that we might do better to solve the problems created by the earthbound variety before creating new frontiers for traffic jams and road rage.
It might run counter to what most believe, but electric vertical takeoff & landing (eVTOL) aircraft could be better for our environment than the congested wheeled mess we have on our roads. A few scientists have been trying to determine this and are on the side of the eVTOL aircraft.
I’m always surprised talking about electric vertical take-off & landing (eVTOL) aircraft technology at a party. Most people think electric urban air mobility (eUAM) won’t happen for a decade. Apart from the sad fact I talk about such things at parties, their reaction is puzzling. While most people think eVTOL aircraft won’t happen for a long time, that is a serious underestimation. Many aviation heavy-hitters and startups are already testing them. Heck, you can even buy one now.
Elon Musk says the Tesla Roadster will be able to fly. Get out your slide rules and follow along with Wired to learn what it would take to make a Roadster fly.
Is the Porsche exec serious with his comments? Will Porsche end up developing a flying car? Or are these comments simply meant to generate buzz?
Short of the revolutionary Burt Rotan wild aircraft designs, airplanes have changed little over the past decades. Winged-cylinder with a propulsion system is how we travel through the air. Unless you have the astronomical budget the military enjoys to design hypersonic aircraft, not for the general public, the choice is simple — airplanes or helicopters. Delorean Aerospace just announced that its DR7 should fly by the end of 2018. That would shake things up, but is it practical, viable, for real?
Elon Musk has tweeted that the new Tesla Roadster will have an optional performance upgrade that will make it even quicker than the base model. He also hinted something about flying cars and rockets. What is Musk up to now?
Geely has finally bought Terrafugia, the famous flying car we’ve been hearing so much about for years. So, what does this mean for the future of flying cars and other vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles?
While some people may have their doubts as to whether or not flying cars will ever truly get off the ground, at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2017 some big names have thrown their weight behind the concept as the future of transportation.
2017 is the year of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles. So far, we’ve seen a few wild projects and some further in the future ones. Despite battery energy density not being quite there yet for long-distance flights, electric airplanes and drones (and everything in between) are taking off. Today’s drone fad is all the rage and has been thrust into the media with such force that it shouldn’t surprise anyone to find a few companies working on drones capable of flying people, right?
