Flying car to go on sale with sky-high price
MONACO — It may not be quite like the Jetsons, but for over a million dollars you, too, can soon fly around in a car.
Slovakian company AeroMobil on Thursday unveiled its flying car, a lightframed plane whose wings can fold back, like an insect, and is boosted by a hybrid engine and rear propeller.
It will be available to preorder as soon as this year but is not for everyone: besides the big price tag — from $1.3 million-$1.6 million — you’d need a pilot’s license to use it in the air.
“I think it’s going to be a very niche product,” said Philip Mawby, professor of electronic engineering at the University of Warwick.
Several companies are working on flying cars, either like Aeromobil’s twoseater that needs a runway, or others that function more like helicopters, lifting off vertically. But not many companies are seriously looking at marketing these vehicles any time soon, Mawby said.
“The technology is there. The question is bringing it to the market at an affordable cost, and making it a useful product.”
Among the big questions is how to control the air traffic if there are hundreds of such vehicles zipping through the air.
So while vehicles like the AeroMobil could be used for recreational purposes by people who have a large piece of land, flying cars are unlikely to become a mass market reality any time soon, he says.
The AeroMobil has a driving range of about 62 miles and a top speed of 99 mph. When flying, its maximum cruising range is 466 miles, and it takes about three minutes for the car to transform into a plane.
“You can use it as a regular car,” said Juraj Vaculik, co-founder and CEO of Aeromobil, at the unveiling in Monaco. Though it is not legal — yet — to take off from a highway.