# Flying cars ... finally here! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 27, 2022, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853 "2022-10-27T03:44:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/1 "2022-10-27T03:44:23Z")
OK, everyone who’s been waiting for flying cars, your wait is over: > **[Check out video footage of XPeng AeroHT's flying car completing its maiden...](https://electrek.co/2022/10/26/check-out-video-footage-of-xpeng-aerohts-flying-car-completing-its-maiden-flight/)** > > Following XPeng’s recent 1024 Tech Day event in China earlier this week, we have finally been able to share video... Well, almost over. That just a prototype, so it may take a while to get it into production. But it flies, and looks like a car, well, one that’s a mashup with a quadcopter. Also may take a while to get FAA certification. And once you get one, don’t forget to get a pilot’s license… ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/2 "2022-10-27T03:46:32Z")
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/a2tDOYkFCYo/maxresdefault.jpg "The flying car completes first ever inter-city flight (Official Video)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2tDOYkFCYo) ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/3 "2022-10-27T04:01:57Z")
That’s not a car, that’s a Transformer! ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/4 "2022-10-27T04:09:02Z")
Oh great. The “drivers” in my area are quite idiotic enough in two dimensions, TYVM. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/5 "2022-10-27T04:14:34Z")
Flying cars aren’t anything new. The prototype Convair Model 118 flew in 1947. > **[Convair Model 118](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_Model_118)** > > The Convair Model 118 ConvAirCar (also known as the Hall Flying Automobile) was a prototype flying car of which two were built. Intended for mainstream consumers, two prototypes were built and flown. The first prototype was lost in an accident due to fuel exhaustion. Subsequently, the second prototype was rebuilt from the damaged aircraft and flown. By that time, little enthusiasm remained for the project and the program ended shortly thereafter. > Consolidated Vultee Aircraft (later Convair) ... The AC-35 auto-gyro flew in 1936. Technically this wasn’t so much a flying car as it was a road-worthy auto-gyro, so if you don’t want to put this on the list I don’t blame you. It does (or did) both fly and drive, though. > **[Autogiro Company of America AC-35](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogiro_Company_of_America_AC-35)** > > The Autogiro Company of America AC-35 was an early attempt to make a roadable aircraft in the United States during the 1930s. Although it was successfully tested, it did not enter production; a 1960s attempt to revive the aircraft in a non-roadable version also failed to achieve success. > The aircraft design process started in 1935. The Experimental Development Section of the Bureau of Air Commerce contracted the building of a roadable aircraft based around an PA-22 autogyro from ACA's parent com... The Taylor Aerocar first flew in 1949, and in 1956 the Civil Aviation Authority actually approved it for production. The company wasn’t able to get enough interest to actually put it into production, however. > **[Aerocar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerocar)** > > Aerocar International's Aerocar (often called the Taylor Aerocar) was an American roadable aircraft designed and built by Moulton Taylor in Longview, Washington in 1949. Although six examples were made, it never entered large-scale production. It is considered one of the first practical flying cars. > Taylor began designing a roadable aircraft in 1946. During a trip to Delaware, he met inventor Robert E. Fulton, Jr., who had designed an earlier roadable airplane, the Airphibian, with detachable wi... There are a lot more on Wikipedia’s page for flying cars. > **[Flying car](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_car)** > > A flying car or roadable aircraft is a type of vehicle which can function both as a road vehicle and as an aircraft. As used here, this includes vehicles which drive as motorcycles when on the road. The term "flying car" is also sometimes used to include hovercars and/or VTOL personal air vehicles. Many prototypes have been built since the early 20th century, using a variety of flight technologies. Most have been designed to take off and land conventionally using a runway. Although VTOL projects ... XPeng is basically following Microsoft’s playbook and is claiming to have invented something that has actually been around for quite some time. Then again, it worked for Microsoft… ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/6 "2022-10-27T04:14:58Z")
Don’t worry about everyone being able to go out an buy one. It may look like a car, but likely the price, if it ever gets on the market, will be half a $million, minimum. Probably more. Same with the transformer car. These will be rich man’s toys. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/7 "2022-10-27T04:19:05Z")
Still doesn’t mean the drivers/pilots will be any more competent in 3D than they are in 2D. Not looking forward to the safety issues here. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/8 "2022-10-27T04:29:29Z")
Well, since it’s a flying vehicle, they’ll have to get a pilot’s license to fly it. Just because it’s also a car does not repeal that requirement. But I know what you mean. Everyone thinks of the Jetsons when they think flying car. Consider all the cars (ignore the heavy trucks and buses) on the road at once in the LA area during rush hour. Tens of thousands, probably. Now think of all them taking off and flying, but not being constrained to fly over the highways. Just going a direct line to their destination. Absolute chaos. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/9 "2022-10-27T04:30:06Z")
Pshaw, I’m not the least bit worried about driving my flying car up in the air with all the other soon-to-be car flyers. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? An occasional fender-bender? I’ve had plenty of fender-benders on the ground. Fender-benders in the air can’t be much worse, can they? ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/10 "2022-10-27T04:47:07Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Now think of all them taking off and flying, but not being constrained to fly over the highways. Just going a direct line to their destination. Absolute chaos. Not that it’s worth (over) thinking this, but they would almost certainly still follow specific routes. For the same reason I can’t drive my car diagonally across 4 lanes of a busy road because my destination is 3 blocks down on the left side of the street, you wouldn’t want flying cars doing that either. Also, whatever form ATC would take in this scenario, it would easier for them if they could put people on a route and just check in on them from time to time and focus their energy on people entering and leaving the tracks. Similar to how planes fly over the Atlantic. > **[North Atlantic Tracks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Tracks)** > > North Atlantic Tracks, officially titled the North Atlantic Organised Track System (NAT-OTS), is a structured set of transatlantic flight routes that stretch from the eastern North America to western Europe across the Atlantic Ocean, within the North Atlantic airspace region. They ensure that aircraft are separated over the ocean, where there is little radar coverage. These heavily travelled routes are used by aircraft flying between North America and Europe, operating between the altitudes of ... ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/11 "2022-10-27T12:26:53Z")
There’s lots of ferment in this corner of aerospace right now. Lots of companies are building prototypes that triangulate between airplane, helicopter, and taxicab. All or substantially all powered by electricity from batteries, fuel cells, or both. The business model is akin to a taxicab or bus company using professional pilots operating company-owned vehicles. There’s no expectation these things will ever be privately owned or operated by any but the uber-rich who in any case would have a chauffeur, not drive it themselves. They’d operate at least at first on canned routes as terrestrial busses do now, then eventually some form of on-demand point-to-point ride-hailing but still from fixed landing facilities (“vertiports” in the argot) located at airports, train stations, stadiums, shopping malls, downtowns, etc. Essentially anyplace that generates a critical mass of would-be riders to/from. So it’d be a weak form of aerial taxicab. A major design goal is to eliminate the pilots and go to remote human control and/or fully autonomous operations pretty early in the industry’s life cycle, like 5-10 years from this stuff being mainstream (at least for the comfy+ class living in really big cities). Which itself is 5 to 10 years out at best. This autonomy idea is frankly much more believable than are self-driving terrestrial cars. Their interaction with conventional aviation and conventional ATC is being defined now. But whatever specific form it takes, and whatever licensing is required for operators of these things, it will be utterly different from what aviation is doing now. [aside] Wiki is pretty useless on this topic. Too much is happening too fast for them to keep up and there really aren’t good secondary sources about the current state of industry play. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/12 "2022-10-27T12:32:37Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > … > Similar to how planes fly over the Atlantic. > … Actually, the North Atlantic Track system is now beginning to be dismantled as obsolete. The replacement is full free-flight direct from one shoreline to another. This dismantlement is still the work of a decade or more, but direct trajectories are being flown now in at least some of what was historically NAT airspace. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/13 "2022-10-27T12:33:55Z")
Oh, great, we have crazies out there that can’t handle two dimensional driving. Now, I have to worry about them dropping out of the sky? 😳 ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/14 "2022-10-27T12:42:21Z")
Minnesota just installed flashing yellow left turn arrows and signs saying “Left turn yield on flashing yellow arrow” because drivers here are too stupid not to drive directly into incoming traffic. I don’t see this being a reality here any time soon. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/15 "2022-10-27T12:50:30Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > Oh, great, we have crazies out there that can’t handle two dimensional driving. Now, I have to worry about them dropping out of the sky? 😳 Exactly my concern about this. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/16 "2022-10-27T13:23:00Z")
Quoting myself for context: > [@LSLGuy](#): > > > [@Joey\_P](#): > > > > … > > Similar to how planes fly over the Atlantic. > > … > > Actually, the North Atlantic Track system is now beginning to be dismantled as obsolete. The replacement is full free-flight direct from one shoreline to another. This dismantlement is still the work of a decade or more, but direct trajectories are being flown now in at least some of what was historically NAT airspace. Late add/edit: That came out a bit off-key. I didn’t / don’t mean to pooh-pooh your suggestion that flying cars will be on fixed routes in the early days, and perhaps forever. That’s spot-on thinking. I was trying to add a bit of insider trivia to your choice of example. No criticism was intended, and I’m sorry if it came off that way. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/17 "2022-10-27T15:28:08Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > A major design goal is to eliminate the pilots and go to remote human control and/or fully autonomous operations pretty early in the industry’s life cycle, like 5-10 years from this stuff being mainstream (at least for the comfy+ class living in really big cities). Which itself is 5 to 10 years out at best. This autonomy idea is frankly much more believable than are self-driving terrestrial cars. One way to do it is have the “cars” being exclusively driverless in the air (as in, not having any flight controls at all), while under human control on the ground. Drivers will drive on streets and roads, as they do now, to designated areas - like highways or city avenues - at which point they’ll enter their destination, let go of the wheel, and let the automated ATC system fly them as close as possible to their where they want to go, at which point they’ll land and take control of the car. To actually fly a car yourself, you’ll need a pilot’s license, and you can only use it in rural and wilderness areas, so as not to pose a risk to automated flying vehicles or to people on the ground. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/18 "2022-10-27T16:23:29Z")
The vehicles I’m talking about are not in any sense cars. They have no ability to operate on roads. They are effectively helicopters that need less-extensive heliports and are (supposedly) quiet enough to be acceptable flitting to and fro in great numbers over our heads. Now you’re right that if we ever did get true point-to-point vehicles that could be cars e.g. from home to takeoff point then again from landing point to work, something like fully automated flight and fully manual road driving is probably the way to accomplish that goal. There are a couple of outfits in China and other countries trying to make that double jump from idea to working eVTOL machine to working flying roadworthy e-car. Seems like a fun way to convert investor cash into small visionary engineering shop employment, but not the makings of a real industry. At least not yet. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/19 "2022-10-27T16:29:30Z")
If I built a flying car I would not have called it XPeng! ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853/20 "2022-10-27T16:44:50Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > The prototype Convair Model 118 flew in 1947. Misread this and thought “great, unsafe at any ~~speed~~ altitude”. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/flying-cars-finally-here/973853.md?page=2)