Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
NEC exhibits ‘flying car’ prototype
Japan helping firms get fledgling industry off the ground
Japan — Japanese electronics maker NEC Corp. on Monday showed a “flying car,” a large drone-like machine with four propellers that hovered steadily for about a minute.
The test flight, reaching 10 feet high, was confined to a gigantic cage as a safety precaution at an NEC facility in a Tokyo suburb. The preparations, such as the repeated checks on the machine and warnings to reporters to wear helmets, took up more time than the two brief demonstrations.
Behind the drama-free demonstration lies a bigger ambition: Japan’s government wants the country to become a leader in flying cars after missing out on advancements in technology such as electric cars and ride-hailing services. The country’s technological road map calls for shipping goods by flying cars by about 2023 and letting people ride in flying cars in cities by the 2030s.
“Japan is a densely populated country and that means flying cars could greatly alA
leviate the burden on road traffic,” said Kouji Okada, a leader of the project at NEC. “We are positioning ourselves as an enabler for air mobility, providing location data and building communications infrastructure for flying cars.”
For the past few years, Japan has seen the emergence of a small, passionate flying-car community that believes Japan has the engineering expertise and right environment to foster a global flying car industry. Venture capitalists in the country set up a specialized fund, known as the Drone Fund, devoted to investing in autonomous aircraft in general and flying-car businesses in particular.
The Japanese government is behind flying cars, with the goal of having people zipping around in them by the 2030s.
Among the governmentbacked endeavors is an extensive test course for flying cars that’s built in an area devastated by the 2011 tsunami, earthquake and nuclear disasters in Fukushima in northeastern Japan. Mie, a prefecture in central Japan that’s frequently used as a resort area by Hollywood celebrities, also hopes to use flying cars to connect its various islands.
Although Monday’s demonstration is among the first by a big Japanese corporation, NEC isn’t planning to mass-produce the flying car, Okada said. Instead, project partner Cartivator will start mass producing the machine in 2026, according to the startup’s co-founder, Tomohiro Fukuzawa.
Similar projects are popping up around world, such as Uber Air of the U.S.
A flying car by Cartivator crashed quickly in a 2017 demonstration. Fukuzawa, who was at Monday’s demonstration, said his company’s machines are also making longer flights lately.
NEC is among the more than 80 sponsor companies for Cartivator’s flying car, which include Toyota Motor Corp. group companies and video game company Bandai Namco Holdings.
The goal is to deliver a seamless transition from driving to flight like the world of Back to
the Future, though hurdles remain such as battery life, the need for regulations and safety concerns.
NEC officials said their flying car was designed for unmanned delivery flights, but the company’s technology is used in its other operations such as space travel and cybersecurity.
Often called EVtol, for “electric vertical takeoff and landing” aircraft, a flying car is defined as an aircraft that’s electric, or hybrid electric, with driverless capabilities, that can land and takeoff vertically.
The flying car concepts, which are like drones big enough to hold humans, are touted to be better than helicopters, which are expensive to maintain, noisy to fly and require trained pilots. Flying cars also are being touted as useful for disaster relief.
U.S. ride-sharing and transportation network Uber is planning demonstrator car flights in 2020 and commercial operations in 2023, and has chosen Dallas, Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia, as the first cities to offer what it calls Uber Air flights.
Dubai has also been aggressive about pursuing flying cars. Japanese officials say Japan has a good chance of emerging as a world leader because the government and the private sector will work closely together.