Japan’s ‘Flying Car’ Gets off Ground

The decades-old dream of flying around in the sky, as simply as driving on highways just might become less illusory.

In a video shown to reporters on Friday, a contraption, which looked like a smooth motorcycle with propellers, rose a few feet (1-2 meters) from the ground and hovered in the netted area for four minutes.

Tomohiro Fukuzawa, head of SkiDrive’s efforts, said he hoped that flying car would be able to turn into a real-life product by 2023. He also highlighted that but acknowledged that making it safe was critical.

Fukozava continued: “Of the world’s more than 100 flying car projects, only a handful has succeeded with a person on board, I hope many people will want to ride it and feel safe.” he told The Associated Press.

This extraordinary machine can fly for only five to ten minutes so far, but if that period can be prolonged to thirty minutes, it will definitely have more potential, including exports to places like China, as Fukuzawa added.

Unlike airplanes and helicopters, “electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL)”  vehicles offer quick point-to-point personal travel.

One of the biggest advantages for those flying cars might be not having to deal with the hassle of airports and traffic jams and the cost of hiring pilots, they could fly automatically. On another hand, Battery sizes, air traffic control and other infrastructure issues are among the many potential challenges and issues that should be resolved in order to get them commercialized.

Sanjiv Singh, professor at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, who co-founded Near Earth Autonomy, near Pittsburgh, which is also working on an eVTOL aircraft, said over the phone that no one would want to buy them if they cost $10 million, if they fly for 5 minutes, or if they fall out of the sky every often. Therefore, Many things have to happen, in his own words.

What experts say?

Experts do compare the fuss over flying cars to the old days, when the aviation industry got started with the Wright Brothers, or, similarly, the auto industry with the Ford Model T.

Sebastian Thrun, chief executive of Kitty Hawk, said it took some time for airplanes, self-driving cars and cell phones as well and  to win acceptance.