Flying cars: Are we there yet?
On 27 October 2020, KleinVision, the Slovakian would-be flying car manufacturer founded by Prof Stefan Klein, posted a video on their YouTube channel. It was of their flying car concept, dubbed the AirCar, on its maiden flight.
The two-and-a-half-minute video shows the vehicle, which resembles a futuristic professional racing car, driving along the road on four wheels like any other, before it goes into full Transformer mode. At first, a spoiler extends further out towards the back, then wings – that fold horizontally and towards the back along the sides of the AirCar – lift up and spread out to the sides.
KleinVision says that the full transformation takes less than three minutes.
A couple of scenes later, the AirCar speeds down a runway, wings out while still on all four wheels, and takes off into the air, reaching an altitude of nearly half a kilometre: 457m to be exact.
During that maiden flight, it was powered by a 1.6l BMW engine, but, according to Klein, it will eventually be powered by an engine with twice the power output, made by South African company Adept Airmotive. Its estimated travel range is 1,000km, with flight fuel consumption of 18l/h.
The eVTOLs have landed
Last year was a significant year towards making the flying car dream a reality. Klein and company were certainly not the only ones to make major vertical moves.
While their prototype stands out as one of the few models that most closely resembles a four-wheeled car, the category that is seeing the most action is what is known as eVTOL (Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing).
Roughly, these resemble manned drones rather than road cars. They don’t have wheels and, as the name suggests, they take off vertically in a similar fashion to drones or helicopters.
Just two months before the YouTube post of the AirCar’s maiden flight, the Toyota -backed SkyDrive team posted a video titled SkyDrive Project SD-03 World Debut, which showcased their small, one-seater SD-03 vehicle taking flight and hovering above the ground for four minutes, at an altitude of about 1.8m. SkyDrive says, “The practical use target of our Flying Car is 2023. Lots of sponsors, such as Panasonic, NEC etc, are supporting us. This summer we’re planning to conduct our first public manned demonstration flight (by video)!”
Meanwhile, German “urban air mobility” company Volocopter is betting on eVTOLs as a kind of future Uber service – in the nottoo-distant future. As of September 2020, would-be riders have been able to book tickets for future 15-minute flights for $355 (R4,900) on the VoloCity air taxi, a two-seater eVTOL with 18 rotors, resembling a drone-helicopter hybrid.
According to Volocopter, “When you experience a VoloCity for the first time, you won’t believe your ears… All 18 rotors acoustically operate within a narrow frequency range, thus cancelling each other out to a high degree.”
VoloCity air taxis, it says, are four times quieter than a small helicopter; commercial flights in Paris and Singapore are planned to take off within the next three years.
Whether that ambitious goal is reached remains to be seen. Urban air mobility enthusiasts may be familiar with previous unmet targets, such as that of Ehang, the Chinese company that was supposed to launch a self-flying taxi service in Dubai back in July 2017, in partnership with the Dubai Roads and Transport Authority.
Like the VoloCity, the Ehang 184 is a two-seater. Its rotors sit on the vehicle’s eight arms that fold out. It also has 46 cm of storage space that can fit a small suitcase.
Being unmanned, potential passengers would use the service through an app that resembles the Uber app. On 4 June, Ehang posted a video of the latest iteration of its “autonomous aerial vehicle”, the Ehang 216, making a successful test flight in Japan.
For those who would prefer more of a private-ownership experience, one that is also car-like, the AirCar is not the only option promised to be available in the near-future.
AeroMobil promises a four-wheeled “ultrahigh-end vehicle that is equally at home on the road or in the sky” by early 2023. That’s about 19 to 23 months away.
Like many others that have taken to the skies, AeroMobil posted a video on 4 March on its YouTube channel, with highlights from the flying car’s test flights between September and December last year. Like the AirCar, the two-seater’s wings fold back while on the road and fold out in three minutes when in flight.
Its manufacturers promise a driving range of 520km with a top speed of 160km/h and a flying range of 740km at a cruising speed of 260km/h.
It is also worth noting that some members of KleinVision previously worked with AeroMobil on its earlier iterations. Stefan Klein, who began development of the first AeroMobil 1 concept back in 1989, went on to establish KleinVision in 2016.
Can I drive that on a Code B licence?
Probably not. Admittedly, autonomous or shared manned eVTOLs won’t require an additional skills set from passengers, other than being able to use an app.
However, privately owned flying cars such as the AeroMobil and the AirCar, or even the one-seater, Toyota-backed low-altitude SkyDrive, will require some level of aviation literacy.
In an article titled Personal Flying Cars Won’t Be Around Soon. And There Won’t Be Too Many, Anyway published by Autoevolution, Alexandru Sincan writes: “We are talking about abilities to think in 3D about the act of driving and not everybody could physically and mentally adapt to this – it’s a much more demanding task than 2D driving.”
Scheduled flights must be approved “by some kind of authority or program prior to taking off – a procedure aiming to exclude any risk of mid-air collision and to facilitate a rapid intervention in an eventual distress situation. Otherwise, the flight will be postponed until a safe window for the supposed trajectory will be available. That’s how controlled airspace works,” he writes.
The reliability of a flying car must be “above any suspicion”, since any defective vehicle of this kind “[can’t just] shut down its engines, stop in mid-air and wait for a flying service truck up there”.
The reliability of a flying car must be ‘above any suspicion’, since any defective vehicle of this kind ‘[can’t just] shut down its engines, stop in mid-air and wait for a flying service truck up there’
The elites above
While some manufacturers of eVTOLs market the reduction of traffic congestion as one of the advantages of a shared aerial public transport system, others are contemplating a potential deepening of inequality.
In an article for the Centre for American Progress, titled Flying Cars Will Undermine Democracy and the Environment, Kevin DeGood writes: “If flying cars only provided the occasional trip to a few centimillionaires or billionaires, the effect on society would be negligible. The technology would be just another toy in the stable along with exotic cars and mega-yachts. Yet, if the technology becomes more ubiquitous, the effect will become substantially more threatening…
“Flying cars represent a political danger because they will allow wealthy elites to further opt out of common institutions and everyday experiences, deepening social segregation…
“For the wealthy, the magnetic attraction to flying cars derives from their ability to connect in a few minutes the walled garden of home to the rich cultural amenities and economic opportunities of metropolitan life. In short, the high-speed transportation service that flying cars provide will help elites achieve a dual demand for hyper-seclusion and hyper-access.”