Tech Flying car market growing

Last Friday, a flying car achieved the first manned outdoor flight in Japan in a trial by a local consortium of aviation and automobile businesses. The two-seater took off from an artificial island in Oita and travelled about 400 metres at an altitude of about 30 meters without a pilot controlling the plane. The vehicle, measuring 1.7 metres in height and 5.6 metres in width, remained steady during a flight that lasted 3 minutes and 31 seconds.

The flight was the first outdoor manned test approved by Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. The consortium, called Okayama Kurashiki Mizushima Aero & Space Industry Cluster Study Group, or MASC, has been conducting unmanned tests since 2021. Expectations are high that the electric or hybrid vehicles, which do not require runways as they can take off and land vertically, will alleviate urban traffic congestion. Efforts are underway at home and abroad to set up legal frameworks allowing the use of such vehicles. In Japan, startups like SkyDrive and teTra Aviation have made successful unmanned and indoor manned flights. Overseas, Germany's Volocopter and the U.K.'s Vertical Aerospace aim for commercialization in 2023 or 2024.

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Meanwhile, chemical giant Toray Industries is planning to open a new development base in Nagoya by 2026 to conduct research on materials for flying cars and other next-generation aircraft, Nikkei has learned, as the materials industry prepares for growth in the urban air mobility sector. The new base will be set up at Toray's offices in the industrial centre of Aichi prefecture, with an investment that is expected to be about 6 billion JPY (USD 45 million). It will have an open laboratory with a capacity of about 140 researchers in order to allow joint research with client companies, research institutes and universities.

Currently, next-generation aircraft in the urban air mobility sector use modified versions of carbon fibre materials that are used for passenger planes but this is not the most suited way as they are smaller in size. As market competition intensifies, keeping costs down is expected to become an issue, so the company is working to lower costs through measures like improving the resin material that is mixed with carbon fibre. Toray will also adopt technologies that use artificial intelligence to efficiently select materials that match customers' needs and then make those materials. Compared to conventional methods that rely on the experience and intuition of researchers, this will shorten the development time from considering materials to evaluating prototypes by about three-quarters as well as reduce costs.

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Paywall alert:

We have had flying cars since the 80's, what took these guys so long?

You just need to be careful not to go 88 miles per hour with the flux capacitor engaged or you might end up in an ice age!

As much as I love this topic, there is something that really bugs me. And that is the tendency, especially in the sensationalist press, to fail to have a clear definition of what a flying car is. I may be overlooking some things, but basically there are 1) flying commuter vehicles and 2) vehicles that can covert between ground and flying vehicles, especially if they can operate on roads practically and safely. The first could be called flying commuter vehicles or FCVs or even pure FCVs, while only the second type is sensibly referred to as a flying car.

We have had flying cars since at least the 1930s and good ones too. FCVs on the other hand...probably the mini one man helicopter would be the first proper example.

Here are some of my favorite FCVs.

Joby Unfortunate name for those familiar with Scottish slang
Black Fly
Heaviside
Lithium

Here are some of my favorite flying cars.

KleinVision
Aeromobile

These are my favorites because they seem practical in design and function and have decent range and efficiency for utilizing wings. I am definitely not a fan of flying cars and FCVs that rely on rotors or jets only for flight; they simply don't have the range and efficiency to be very practical except in very limited application.

This is a new favorite FCV I just found. The Cavorite X5.

Hybrid gas/electric with VTOL fans hidden in the wings.

My only complaint is I think they could have had lids which open on the wings to expose the VTOL fans rather than split the entire wing which seem to me to be a safety weakness.

Most flying cars, as far as I am aware, have been both poor at flying and at being cars and generally required a good amount of time to convert between the two options.

They are interesting but I don't see them being a good option anytime soon. And the same with VTOL solutions, parking/landing would be an issue as would the "wild west" of people flying them all over the place. I think a lot of people forget that you now have a third axis that you need to keep track of traffic in (front/back, sides, and above/below). Drivers are bad enough at dealing with keeping track of what is going on around them as it is. Maybe there could be a technology to automatically address this but that would likely take a while to implement as well.

Still, I can't wait for my flying car to turn into a suitcase so I can just bring it into the office with me.

Flying cars will be one of the main attractions at the 2025 World Exposition in Osaka: ANA, JAL and three other companies have been selected to operate air taxi services during the event.

ANA Holdings, the parent of All Nippon Airways Co., will partner with U.S. startup Joby Aviation Inc., a company in which Toyota Motor Corp. has a stake. Other companies selected as operators are SkyDrive Inc., based in Aichi Prefecture, and trading firm Marubeni Corp. [...] The flying cars, which will carry two to five people each, will connect the three areas of the exposition venue on Yumeshima, central Osaka city and nearby Kansai International Airport. Their flight routes, landing and takeoff areas are to be determined. ANA Holdings will operate a five-seat vertical takeoff and landing aircraft developed by Joby Aviation. In October, the California-based company applied for its aircraft design to be certified for use in Japan. JAL will operate two-rider aircraft developed by German firm Volocopter GmbH, while Marubeni will operate five-seater aircraft created by Vertical Aerospace Group Ltd., a British company, after reserving in January delivery slots for 25 of them. SkyDrive is looking to get a type certificate for its two-rider aircraft, still in development, before the exposition.

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Petaris said:

Most flying cars, as far as I am aware, have been both poor at flying and at being cars and generally required a good amount of time to convert between the two options.

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This has a great lot to do with what you are including in the list. Even airplanes themselves have many more unsuccessful prototypes and variations than successful ones.

The real problem with a true flying car is the lack of infrastructure and the need for both a driver's license and pilot's license. Given those limitations, its kind of incredible that anyone has even bothered making them.

Here is one from the 30s. If there is a serious problem with it, I don't know what it is.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterman_Arrowbile

Petaris said:

They are interesting but I don't see them being a good option anytime soon. And the same with VTOL solutions, parking/landing would be an issue as would the "wild west" of people flying them all over the place.

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There was also a wild west of automobiles. I don't see much difference with flying cars or FCVs....we just need rules of the air laid out and probably virtual sky roads you can see with augmented reality goggles or heads up displays. We might also need double decker roads where you land on top and then head to the lower area for the actual driving to your final destination.

Just taking off from your house sounds great, but it seems impractical. There would have to be zones for take off and landing.

Master of Time said:

There was also a wild west of automobiles. I don't see much difference with flying cars or FCVs....we just need rules of the air laid out and probably virtual sky roads you can see with augmented reality goggles or heads up displays. We might also need double decker roads where you land on top and then head to the lower area for the actual driving to your final destination.

Just taking off from your house sounds great, but it seems impractical. There would have to be zones for take off and landing.

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That is my point though, that infrastructure doesn't exist and unlike airports would be needed a lot more places to be practical.

Also, as far as the flying car from the 30's that you mentioned it has the issues that I mentioned. Its design of needing to be able to fly meant that it was made of light weight materials and would not be very safe to drive around when the normal vehicles in the 30's would have been steel tanks in comparison. Also it meant a smaller cabin/body which would mean less storage area. It all depends on a persons use cases and since it never became a successful, widely used, vehicle it must not have met the use cases, or probably the budgets, of many people.

That is my point though, that infrastructure doesn't exist and unlike airports would be needed a lot more places to be practical.

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We had the same problem in the 1920s and 1930s with commercial flight and that is why things like seaplanes and airships were so popular....so very many natural landing options. The Hindenburg crash not only killed the airship but probably also contributed tot he decision to invest heavily in airports. And when the airports were finally built the seaplanes fell out of favor.

Same with electric cars the infrastructure really will need to come first before massive adoption can happen. But flying cars would not need the massive airports the standard airports need. Lots of smaller ones would do the trick and computerized air traffic control that we can do today will also solve a lot of issues.

Petaris said:

Also, as far as the flying car from the 30's that you mentioned it has the issues that I mentioned.

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You said "poor" at flying. It was not the Red Barons own nimble Fokker that's for sure, but it seems it flew better than an ultralight.

You said poor at being cars, which I took as straight performance issues. Yeah, I would say they were no safer than motorcycles of the time and cargo capacity definitely also lacking...but again...same as a motorcyle. Conversion I am not sure of, but it looks like it needed time...probably 30 minutes or so. Cost was like $700 about $16000 in U.S. dollars today. All said, that is pretty amazing for what amounts to a prototype. Had there been a real market/interest I am confident all of your complaints could have been addressed.

Reasons why flying cars did not take off (sic) are many and less to do with technology/design than with perception, regulations, and infrastructure I think. Probably its also fair to include the capabilities of the average person. Not really sure if that will ever change, but considering the number of R/C drones flying around and the skill being shown, these days maybe more people could handle it than I think.

Jetoptera's J2000

This FCV is attempting to take advantage of various principles of physics for flight and VTOL.

The term "bladeless" is used but its more true that the blades are internal.....although with a twist (sic).

Earlier I voiced some annoyance at the over-generalized use of the term "flying car". Now I am wondering if my sub-set of "flying commuter vehicle" is robust enough.

This might belong in another category entirely....or just be called a small/ medium electric airplane as it can carry six passengers and apparently is not being billed as a personal or family craft? But rest assured, I found this using the search terms of "flying car"...but...its not. Flying taxi?

What it is though is an amazing piece of engineering and product of clever thought. Its still in the works, so those nacelles on the wings might confuse people as to their purpose. They are meant to have two propellors each, which allow vertical takeoff and landing, which also conform somewhat aerodynamically to the nacelles when not spinning during cruising.

At the very least, a design like this could strongly influence other FCV design.

ALIA-250

Whatever you call them, I think they will become commonplace in some places. But I also think they won't be deployed widely until they are fully automated.