Now Google boss puts £70m into f lying cars
FROM Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to The Jetsons and Back To The Future, the idea of a flying car has so far been confined to the big and small screens.
But the wait for an ‘aerocar’ may soon be over – after Google cofounder Larry Page secretly spent more than £70million developing one.
The Silicon Valley mogul has kept his dream project under wraps for six years, but reportedly has two firms competing to be first to launch their designs.
Recent breakthroughs with electric cars have fasttracked possibilities for a vehicle that can take off and land vertically.
Google is already developing selfdriving cars while plans for dronepowered deliveries by firms such as Amazon are in the prototype stage.
And other cuttingedge projects by web entrepreneurs are paying dividends.
PayPal founder Elon Musk’s private firm, SpaceX, is already delivering cargo loads to the International Space Station and has pioneered reusable launch rocket vehicles. Meanwhile Page, 43, is funding two companies dedicated to car flight in northern California – Zee.Aero and Kitty Hawk, Bloomberg News reported in the US.
Witnesses describe the latest version of the Zee.Aero flying cars as having a narrow body with a bulbous cockpit (not unlike the Jetsons’ car) with enough room for one person up front and a wing at the back. The ‘aerocars’ are said to be ‘pushers’ with two propellers situated at the rear.
When the craft take off at the Hollister Municipal Airport test base, say Bloomberg, they sound like air raid sirens. About a dozen firms around the world are said to be working on prototypes – but Page’s research is said to be the most advanced.
‘Over the past five years there have been these tremendous advances in the underlying technology,’ said Nasa aeronautical engineer Mark Moore. ‘What appears in the next five to ten years will be incredible.’
Paul Moller, an engineering professor at California University who has pioneered several flying car attempts, added: ‘Selfflying aircraft is so much easier than what the auto companies are trying to do with selfdriving cars.’ Electric motors are quieter and safer and have far fewer moving parts than internal combustion engines or conventional turbines. They are also cheaper and more secure.
Zee.Aero, based right next to Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California, is said to have about 150 employees.
Sebastian Thrun, responsible for much of Google’s selfdriving car project, is its president. Kitty Hawk, a smaller venture, has about a dozen engineers and is working on ‘something that resembles a giant version of a quadcopter drone’. Page refused to comment.