Is the flying car commercially viable?
A car that can fly has been a dream for over a century. Every few years a prototype is tested, but none ever go into production. One was flown by Christopher Lee in the Bond movie, “The Man with the Golden Gun.” Last week a new prototype was flown on a 35-minute flight between two international airports. It was the Aircar, made by Klein Vision, that uses regular petrol-pump fuel to power a BMW engine, and can carry 2 people at a cruising speed of 106 miles an hour.
Apparently it takes two minutes and 15 seconds to transform it from a car into an aircraft, and can fly 600 miles at a height of 8,200 feet. The company behind it says the prototype has taken about two years to develop and cost "less than 2m euros" (£1.7m) in investment.
It’s great that people in a market-driven capitalist economy will put up money like this to back new concepts in the hope of capturing a lucrative share of the market. The customers out there will separate out those who get it right, by providing them with what they want, from those who fail to do so.
It’s certainly a cool-looking vehicle, but as a commercial prospect I doubt it will fly (so to speak). To fly it you will need a pilot’s licence with all the training that goes into obtaining one. You need an airport and a runway to take off from. The company seems to think the Aircar’s competitors are other light aircraft, but the likelihood instead is that they will be passenger-carrying drones flown and controlled by Artificial Intelligence. People will not need pilot’s licences to travel in them, and they will be able to take off vertically from buildings or parks rather than from distant airports. They will use electricity rather than fossil fuels, and will probably be much quieter. Several prototypes of such vehicles have already been flown or are under development. When they are operating they will reduce road congestion and journey times, and take some of the strain off transport infrastructure.
All credit, however, to the inventors and designers who have produced what seems to be a valid, workable version of the long-dreamed-of flying car. It might work, perhaps cornering a small niche of the light aircraft market. But to play a significant role in mass transit, it might have arrived on the scene too late, drawing on a technology that is about to be replaced by a newer one. As with other market innovations, it will have to face the test of the consumers. Will they buy it?