Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2013, and the flying car plans and four-seat vertical-take-off concept it describes were current then. Terrafugia was later bought by China’s Geely in 2017.
The idea of a flying car has so far been the stuff of science fiction, but the company Terrafugia could soon make it a reality. In fact, real test runs are already under way. Thanks to hybrid electric-petrol technology from the car industry and autopilot technology from the aviation industry, Terrafugia believes it now has all the ingredients to bring this car to the consumer market.
At first, the flying car was a very different and problematic concept, since what we really had was a light aircraft that could be driven on the road. It needed space to take off and a runway to land. That idea has been dropped completely. That plane-car model is the one shown in the photo at the top of this article.
The flying car model they are working on now has a roomy interior for four people. It can take off completely vertically without needing any runway, as it has arms with propellers that lift it up the way a helicopter does, and once it is in the air it recharges its batteries as it goes. It can also be plugged into the mains at home. Put simply, it is an electric car for the city and would only use petrol in the air. All that would remain is to adapt the legal regulations and traffic laws so that the vehicle can be used.
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Source: Business Insider
Featured image: * IFCAR; derivative work: MarkWarren; derivative work: MarkWarren, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
