Flying car could be one of the cheapest in the world

KUALA LUMPUR: At RM1 million, Malaysia’s soon-to-come flying car will perhaps be one of the cheapest in the world if Entrepreneur Development Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Redzuan Md Yusof ’s statement is accurate.

Flying cars are expensive to produce and, to date, no commercially mass-produced flying car is available in the market.

The difficulty in producing a flying car has prompted the creation of the catchphrase “Where’s my flying car?”

The 1917 Curtiss Autoplane was one of the first flying cars dreamed up. Since then, various prototypes have been developed, with some being certified, but never put into production.

Companies around the world spent tens of millions of dollars developing prototypes.

A flying car that is perhaps close to production is the Pal-V Pioneer, which was shown at last year’s Geneva Motorshow.

The company that produced the car claimed that it was the world’s first production-ready flying car and said it was working on the final certification process to make it legal.

However, the Pal-V will cost US$600,000 each (RM2.44 million) for a production version.

One-off prototypes are usually more expensive to produce.

United States-based Terrafugia, which is owned by Volvo, is scheduled to take to the skies sometime this year, but has an estimated price of US$400,000, which is more expensive than Malaysia’s proposed flying car.

This price will be for a production version of the Transition model, which is powered by a four-cylinder hybrid-electric engine and will have a flying range of 646km.

Slovak company AeroMobil is developing a flying car targeted at wealthy supercar buyers. In 2016, the company raised US$3.2 million for the development of a new prototype after one of its prototypes crashed in 2015.

Another iteration of flying cars are vehicles that are not equipped with wheels, like the Volocopter prototype, which was displayed at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2017 and was tested in Dubai to possibly be an air taxi.

German-based company Volocopter GmbH has received €30 million (RM115.54 million) in funding from Daimler, among others, to continue developing its protoypes.

There are other flying cars being built around the world, some of which are based on electrical technology.

However, to date, a workable flying car has yet to be made available.

Some companies have invested huge amounts of money for this purpose.

The infamous Moller Skycar, for example, was developed over a period of 40 years and allegedly involved US$100,000,000 in expenditure, but it has yet to fly in free, non-tethered flight.

However, there is a possibility that affordable flying cars may be made available with advancements in electrical and battery technologies.

EV Club Malaysia spokesman Datuk Shahrol Halmi said an electric flying car would have spillover effects that would be beneficial to Malaysia’s electric vehicle (EV) industry.

“An interesting possibility will be a flying car that runs on batteries. Lightweight batteries can be critical for flight, but when used on normal EVs, it will translate to lower energy and fun to drive EVs.

“Producing an electric flying car means skills in developing powerful and lightweight motors will be created.

“This will be beneficial for land EVs.”