If you’re a person of a certain age, you might feel as if you’ve been promised flying cars as part of the future for your entire life. I mean, cartoons, Hollywood movies – they all imagined the regular folks would be zooming in low airspace for their daily commutes by now (if not using cars to time travel to boot).
Image Credit: YouTube
It hasn’t happened, though, and if you’re like me you’ve probably started to assume flying cars were more science fiction than reality after all.
Well, we’re going to have to think again, because there are engineers (and one Elon Musk) out there making our childhood dreams come true.
Image Credit: YouTube
The new flying car, which features a Tesla battery pack that allows it to stay airborne for up to 20 whole minutes, claims to be the “future of air travel” as we know it.
The car (plane?) can travel up to 63mph and, thanks to US regulations, needs no license at all to operate.
I find this hard to believe, considering how protective the States are of their airspace – and also because we have firsthand evidence of how bad people are at flying drones – but it’s true. This flying car requires no driver’s license or pilot’s license to operate.
Image Credit: YouTube
The eVTOL takes off and lands vertically and is named Jetson One. It’s extremely light, weighing in at around 190 pounds, and is classified as an ultralight aircraft. Ultralight aircraft require no operating license.
That said, current US regulations do prohibit these aircraft from being operated near urban areas or airports of any size, so I don’t think people will be cutting that daily commute time in half in the near future.
The Jetson One is available for sale for a $22,000 deposit and a $70,000 final payment.
Don’t get too excited, though, because it’s sold out through at least the end of the year.
