Fire up the flux capacitor and tell Doc you’ll be back in time for dinner — a so-called flying car is scheduled to be debuted at the New York Auto Show this week. And while it won’t travel through time and Marty McFly won’t actually be driving it (George Jetson will be! Kidding, again), we’re still pretty excited.
Forbes.com’s Hannah Elliott says a company called Terrafugia will present the Transition, which can fold up and fly 100 miles per hour with a range of almost 500 miles. While firmly planted on earth, it gets around 35 miles per gallon with premium unleaded gas.
And while maybe this is more of a step in the Jetsons direction — like the pizza button we heard about last week — time travel can’t be far behind, right?
“This is what we can do today with existing technology inside the existing regulatory structure that we have and the physical infrastructure with airports and air space,” Terrafugia CEO Carl Dietrich says. “It’s something that actually works.”
Of course, there are obstacles like ground transportation and hangar storage, dealing with all that air control stuff, and those who would scoff at this car-plane. It’s actually certified as Light Sport Aircraft, and there are plenty of critics who wouldn’t classify it as an auto at all
Forbes quotes a private pilot who says it’s “targeted toward people who buy gadgets from Hammacher Schlemmer. It’s not a car at all,” he says. “It’s an airplane that they’ve dressed up with some car-looking fairings.”
I don’t know about you, but if my white-noise machine from Hammacher Schlemmer could fly me into the sky, I’d be pretty excited.
The Flying Car Comes To The New York Auto Show [Forbes.com]
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That is not a flying car. It is a street legal plane.
Exactly ! I’m so tired of hearing flying car. It’s a roadable aircraft that requires a pilot license to operate.
Is it street legal?
Last time I checked out their website, they said it was street legal.
Haters gotta hate.
It’s a car that flies. Did YOU make one? No, I thought not.
Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads…. except for the landing and driving part.
So actually yes… we do need roads.
I would +1 this so hard.
Did anyone else think, when they saw “piloted by Marty McFly”, that he’d twich and crash the plane/car?
Yeah…I did.
I feel horrible now.
neat
Hmm, you need a runway to fly it, and it costs $279,000? I think a plane would be cheaper.
Gotta start somewhere! Build the tech, build some demand, the manufacturing costs will come down.
Of course, that is a pretty ugly little critter, not particularly interested. I would rather have a plane and a car at each end…
Sounds like the perfect gift for Romney to get for each of his kids. Talk about catering to the 1%.
http://www.cessna150152.com/faqs/cost.htm
A plane would definitely be cheaper, but this is also the prototype. I’m sure personal planes were far more expensive when original debuted. In addition, this plane/car hopefully can be “hangered” at your home. In terms of gas mileage, the website explains that as well, and sounds like cost might be a little more on average, but the savings in trip time is well worth it.
Most of the cost of an aircraft is in maintenance not upfront cost. So the question is how cheap is maintenance on this carplane contraption.
I’m not impressed.
And I’m still waiting for my hovercraft and jet-pack.
Forget time travel, I’d be content with a time-stopping device.
And a freeze ray.
Here’s a jetpack of sorts: http://jetlev.com/
I’m sure that if I just remain patient, that appointment I made to get a hover conversion done at the Acura Dealership will come through…
Till then I will be waiting by the phone!
Fancy Nike’s… check.
Flying Car… check.
Jaws hologram… that would be cool.
Sports Almanac from 50 years in the future… hurry up, because it’s the only one I really care about.
I’d be happy with a Mr. Fusion.
Mr. Fusion would solve our fossil fuel (and therefore global warming) problem almost instantly.
Just hope that the Libyans don’t figure out how to weaponize it…
Oh the perfect thing for today’s drivers. Guess it’s not enough they crash into houses on the GROUND on a regular basis…now they need to do it from the air too.
Other than the all white paint job, it looks just like the ones in the 50′s popular science mags.
I wonder how much this would raise my insurance premiums.
$5000 per year, minimum.
Here is a TED Talk about the car, for those who are interested: http://www.ted.com/talks/anna_mracek_dietrich_a_plane_you_can_drive.html
Just one little fender bender, and you’re grounded.
Actually it will travel through time. Just in the same way the rest of us do.
I’d rather buy this: http://www.moller.com/
If this were to get popular it would be a huge safety hazard.
Fail in 5,4,3,2,…..
Why is everyone in the media banging on like this is a new thing? It isn’t. And it’ll end up in the dustheap of history just like all the others.
Yep, it’s been tried at least twice before and failed miserably.
I feel for any investors involved with this though… Nah not sorry for them at all.
It’s bad enough with the tailgaters driving right behind me – now I have to have maniacs in flying cars right over my roof?
The problem with flying cars is that People can’t drive, much less fly. I hardly trust them to walk, and only marginally expect them to stand up straight from time to time. Planes would be detrimental to everyone’s well beings in the hands of the lowest common denominator.
Another problem is that we simply don’t have the infrastructure for it. Traffic controllers are overworked with the current amount of planes. Could you imagine the current system handling millions more of them?
Check out that TED talk I posted earlier. There is infrastructure for it, and since it’s a plane and not a car, you need to have a pilot’s licence to operate it. That would handle the “lowest common denominator,” don’t you think?
When people say “Flying car” there’s a whole lot more connotations that just a slightly more convenient toy for experienced pilots.
This isn’t a solution to any problem except for lazy pilots who don’t want to store their plane in a hangar.
It was on Fox News. (yeah, I know that is a bad work on consumerist)
Do I have to hire a TSA valet to give me a full body cavity search every time before I can get in it?
This ain’t gonna end well. I can see the headlines already; some dufus buys this contraption and flies his fam to Disney World and ends up crashing into a iHop.
Oh Lord, I can see it now…
Drunk pilots flying into peoples homes…
Hmmm, A cop flying car to catch / chase down the drunks???
If we are seeing PROFESSIONAL pilots getting into the cockpits that are considered legally drunk and they are a minority I agree, then when you start adding thousands and thousands of others with less training then I shudder to think of the problems that will occur.