![]() However, he noted the importance of safety. He said he hopes the flying car can be made into a real-life product by 2023. Tomohiro Fukuzawa heads the SkyDrive effort. It flew in circles in a protected area for four minutes. In a video shown to reporters last week, a vehicle that looked like a motorcycle with propellers lifted up to two meters off the ground. It is just one of the many “flying car” projects around the world. Japan’s SkyDrive has carried out a successful, but modest test flight of such a vehicle carrying a person. "But the time between technology and social adoption might be more compressed for eVTOL vehicles,” he said.Ĭhisato Tanaka contributed to this report.People have long dreamt of a car that flies through the sky. Sebastian Thrun, chief executive of Kitty Hawk, said it took time for airplanes, cell phones and self-driving cars to win acceptance. Lilium of Germany, Joby Aviation in California and Wisk, a joint venture between Boeing Co and Kitty Hawk Corp, are also working on eVTOL projects. The Japanese government is bullish on "the Jetsons” vision, with a "road map” for business services by 2023, and expanded commercial use by the 2030s, stressing its potential for connecting remote areas and providing a lifeline during disasters.Įxperts compare the buzz over flying cars to the days when the aviation industry got started with the Wright Brothers and the auto industry with the Ford Model T. But it has improved and the project recently received another round of funding, of ¥3.9bil (RM152.49mil), including from the Development Bank of Japan. The SkyDrive project began humbly as a volunteer project called Cartivator in 2012, with funding by top Japanese companies including automaker Toyota Motor Corp, electronics company Panasonic Corp and video-game developer Bandai Namco.Ī demonstration flight three years ago went poorly. If they fall out of the sky every so often, no one is going to buy them,” Singh said in a telephone interview. If they fly for five minutes, no one is going to buy them. "If they cost US$10mil (RM41.75mil), no one is going to buy them. "Many things have to happen,” said Sanjiv Singh, professor at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, who co-founded Near Earth Autonomy, near Pittsburgh, which is also working on an eVTOL aircraft. They could do away with the hassle of airports and traffic jams and the cost of hiring pilots, they could fly automatically.īattery sizes, air traffic control and other infrastructure issues are among the many potential challenges to commercialising them. Unlike airplanes and helicopters, eVTOL, or "electric vertical takeoff and landing”, vehicles offer quick point-to-point personal travel, at least in principle. ![]() The machine so far can fly for just five to 10 minutes but if that can become 30 minutes, it will have more potential, including as exports to places like China, Fukuzawa said. "I hope many people will want to ride it and feel safe.” "Of the world’s more than 100 flying car projects, only a handful has succeeded with a person on board,” he told The Associated Press. ![]() Tomohiro Fukuzawa, who heads the SkyDrive effort, said he hopes "the flying car” can be made into a real-life product by 2023, but he acknowledged that making it safe was critical. In a video shown to reporters on Aug 28, a contraption that looked like a slick motorcycle with propellers lifted several feet (1-2 metres) off the ground, and hovered in a netted area for four minutes. Japan’s SkyDrive Inc, among the myriad "flying car” projects around the world, has carried out a successful, though modest, test flight with one person aboard. TOKYO: The decades-old dream of zipping around in the sky as simply as driving on highways may be becoming less illusory. ![]()
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