When do you think flying cars will be invented?

Question: When do you think flying cars will be invented?
- Keywords:
  transport
Asked by ElizabethM on 1 Mar 2021.
- Miray Yasar answered on 1 Mar 2021:
  
  We are so close to it. There is a company which is producing air taxi in Germany.
  Check that one out, I am sure you will be inspired!
  
  https://www.volocopter.com/en/
- Erika Duriakova answered on 1 Mar 2021:
  
  I agree with Miray, we are very close indeed. There is a company in Slovakia that is claiming to have its flying car, called the aeromobil out in 2023! You can check it out here: https://www.aeromobil.com/
- Sergii Kushch answered on 2 Mar 2021:
  
  I think they already exist, as my colleagues have said. Another point is that they are still not widespread. And of course, there remains the point of the cost of such cars, parking for them and the infrastructure for their maintenance. All this prevents their implementation.
- Helena Mylise Sorensen answered on 2 Mar 2021: last edited 2 Mar 2021 8:23 am
  
  As mentioned by the other engineers, they have actually already been invented! What I think will be interesting now is how to implement them and solve some of the questions they can raise:
  Are they environmentally friendly? Will we need special car-runways? Will you need to have a special type of drivers license? Where do you park them? And a whole lot of more questions for current and future engineers to solve.
- Rizwan Gill answered on 2 Mar 2021:
  
  Well the ” flying cars or their prototypes” are already there, but the question is ” are they safe?” , we will be traveling in the air taxis as soon as we have the answer of this question. Let me guess , 2030 could be the year!
- Mike Hinchey answered on 2 Mar 2021:
  
  One of my colleagues was the former head of the US Patent Office. He says that flying cars are the most commonly rejected patent. But there are a number of companies who are experimenting with creating something like a large drone than can take a small number of passengers. The question is whether they will be safe and whether people will be able to have a licence to fly them, or do they need to be a qualified pilot, etc. But I think it’s like autonomous cars: it won’t really be practical until there are lots of them.
- Melusine Pigeon answered on 2 Mar 2021:
  
  I don’t know much about flying cars but for drones able to carry one person as a taxi or personal vehicle, we are already there. You can check the website of Volocopter.
- Siddra Maryam answered on 2 Mar 2021: last edited 2 Mar 2021 10:28 am
  
  There are already many prototypes of flying cars. A company named Terrafugia recently has been approved to take off by FAA according to Forbs. There are different other companies Volvo, Hyundai, NASA, and even Uber looking in to this.
  But for Engineers, it is a bit different stories as flying cars needs two opposite sets of requirements. A car needs to be heavy to stay balanced and centered on the road however an aircraft needs to be light and narrow in order to follow aerodynamics to produce lift. So for the flying cars they needs a balance in between somehow and they need to be much safe, in order to sell a flying car to public.
  During the last decade a company developed its first official prototype of flying car with Carbon fiber reinforced body and advanced avionics, which could change mode between car to flying in 3min. Despite of all the advancements AeroMobile3.0 crashed in 2015 and its steel framework was completely destroyed. (https://www.themanufacturer.com/videos/aeromobil-3-0-flying-car-crashes-during-test-flight/)
  But later on the company returned with a better model. https://www.aeromobil.com/
  So, it will not be wrong to say that we are going to have flying cars available to public very soon, may be in next few years. But they will still cost a fortune. And at this price it is unlikely to see a flying vehicle in mass anytime soon.
- Andrea Federico answered on 2 Mar 2021:
  
  As my colleagues have already written their prototypes already exist. But, it will take a long time before we can actually buy and use them in everyday life. In fact, there is a need for a very safe and organized traffic system, because the sky is completely free of barriers. Just think about the number of cars you see every day in the street and imagine them flying in the sky…..very messy, right xD.
- Hui Wang answered on 2 Mar 2021:
  
  wow. this is an interesting question. my research is not related so I’ll just imagine. I don’t think the technology about how to make a flying car is challenging. the difficult part might be how to monitor or control the traffic. flying cars need rules to follow on the land and in the air.
- Alessandra Mileo answered on 2 Mar 2021:
  
  As most colleagues have said the technology is not difficult, I imagine it would be similar to self-driving cars which exists, have been developed and tested in projects funded by the European Union, and also put on the road in San Francisco at the end of last year. They are equipped with a lot of sensors and intelligent processing units so they can see what happens on the road, avoid obstacles, know where to go, how to park… the problem is technology can be wrong and make mistake. And what is not clear yet is what happens if something goes wrong: who’s fault is it? How does the law apply if there was no driver? I suspect similar aspects are related to flying cars: who’s fault is it if the technology fails the passenger? Who sets the rules of traffic and enforces them?…
- Jun Lin answered on 2 Mar 2021:
  
  Looks like this question has been well answered by other scientists/engineers. This is not my expertise area and good to know that we are not far away from getting there 🙂
- Nadeem Rather answered on 2 Mar 2021:
  
  Do you want to fly in a car or fly like Iron Man?? –
  
  I would say Iron man and believe me it is already being used for various applications. Check the video out –
  
  Not exactly the Iron man suit! but you see, we are not that far. 🙂
  
  Thanks 🙂
- Alan Diaz answered on 2 Mar 2021:
  
  Flying cars indeed exist already, what we need now are the regulations and the infrastructure that would allow them to co-exist with other transportation means (i.e., your parents’ car, buses, taxis, airplanes, you name it!). As you may have noticed, buses can only move on a street where there are street-lights and other signs (i.e., stop sign) that allow them to not crash other cars/buses (or people!). So we need those air-streets and air-signs in order for us to be able to use this type of technology. When would that be? Probably not soon enough in the towns that we know already, but probably in the cities of the future that’ll come much faster! Check Masdar city for example: https://masdarcity.ae/en
- Sita Karki answered on 2 Mar 2021:
  
  This is a very interesting question, but I think it may take a while.
  More important question than flying car would be how soon our existing cars could be made less polluting and more efficient. Currently, most of the automobile research and invention is focussed on improving our cars on the ground such as extending battery life, self-driving, increasing fuel efficiency etc., so we might have to wait a while before we can see cars flying.