The lucky owner will need both a driving licence and a pilot's licence. The PAL-V (Personal Air and Land Vehicle) firm, based in Raamsdonksveer in the Netherlands, is aiming to deliver its first flying car to its first customer by the end of 2018. When the first airplane was invented people already thought 'How can I make that driveable on the road?'," chief marketing officer Markus Hess told AFP. "This kind of dream has been around for 100 years now. It is poised to start production on what they bill as a world first: a three-wheeled gyrocopter-type vehicle which can carry two people and will be certified for use on the roads and in the skies. We guess Toyota needed a little more of an engineering challenge by adding in this extra detail.While several futuristic projects are under way in different countries, a Dutch design may be the first one sold and soaring into the skies.Īfter years of testing, the PAL-V company aims to pip its competitors to the post.
Basically, to turn, one track slows while the other turns faster, and the car pivots in the chosen direction of travel. According to the patent filing, the car would be electric-powered, though it could run on anything from a battery-pack to a gas turbineĪnother strange feature about this flying car - other than the whole "car that flies" thing - is that the patent says the car drives and steers like a tank, or a similar vehicle that rides on tracks instead of wheels.
It looks awfully similar to a scaled-up drone, especially in full-flight mode. Sprouting from each wheel are rotor blades, which give the Toyota vertical take-off ability. The struts and wheels raise upward, with the wheels tilting from a vertical to a horizontal position high above the car. Then the true magic act: the transformation into a plane (or whatever the heck you want to call it). These struts, along with the wheels attached to them, first lower the car and bring it to rest on small appendages on the bottom of the car. The wheels are mounted on what appear to be two substantial struts, which are connected at the top of the car's round-shaped passenger compartment. Looking at the drawings and reading the patent application, it appears this car/plane can stop and quickly transform itself for flying duty. The latter of these three has actually built a vehicle that works, though it looks more like a Cessna with collapsible wings than it does an actual car. Porsche, along with the Massachusetts-based firm of It's a concept being studied by others, most notably Toyota is simply letting its engineers have some fun, because the logistics and legal hurdles involved in creating and selling a flying car are fairly massive. And no, the 2021 model probably won't either. Well, exactly how high this thing might go is still relative since, for the moment, it only exists in sketches.Ĭamry is not going to have a push-to-fly button. As first reported byĪutoGuide, the normally safe and stolid Japanese automaker has apparently filed a patent for a flying machine that can run on terra firma, but also high above the clouds. Toyota is taking to the skies with a flying car.
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