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TOKYO: The decades-long dream of circling the sky as simply as driving on the roads may become less illusory.
Japan’s SkyDrive Inc, among countless “flying car” projects around the world, has carried out a successful, if modest, test flight with one person on board.
In a video shown to reporters on August 28, a contraption that looked like a slippery motorcycle with propellers rose several feet (1-2 meters) off the ground and floated in a netted area for four minutes.
Tomohiro Fukuzawa, who is leading the SkyDrive effort, said he hopes “the flying car” can become a real-life product by 2023, but acknowledged that making it safe was critical.
“Of the more than 100 flying car projects in the world, only a handful have been successful with one person on board,” he told The Associated Press.
“I hope that many people want to ride it and feel safe.”
So far, the machine can only fly for five to 10 minutes, but if that can be turned into 30 minutes, it will have more potential, even as exports to places like China, Fukuzawa said.
Unlike airplanes and helicopters, eVTOL or “electric vertical takeoff and landing,” vehicles offer quick personal point-to-point travel, at least in principle.
They could end the hassle of airports and traffic jams and the cost of hiring pilots, they could fly automatically.
Battery size, air traffic control, and other infrastructure issues are among the many potential challenges to commercializing them.
“A lot has to happen,” said Sanjiv Singh, a professor at the Carnegie Mellon University Institute of Robotics who co-founded Near Earth Autonomy near Pittsburgh, which is also working on an eVTOL plane.
“If they cost US $ 10 thousand (RM41.75 thousand), nobody is going to buy them. If they fly for five minutes, nobody is going to buy them. If they fall from the sky every now and then, nobody is going to buy them,” Singh said in a telephone interview.
The SkyDrive project began humbly as a voluntary project called Cartivator in 2012, with funding from major Japanese companies, including automaker Toyota Motor Corp, electronics company Panasonic Corp, and video game developer Bandai Namco.
A demo flight three years ago went wrong. But it has improved and the project recently received another round of financing, of ¥ 3.9 billion (RM152.49 thousand), including from the Development Bank of Japan.
The Japanese government is optimistic about the vision of “the Jetsons”, with a “roadmap” for business services by 2023 and expanded commercial use by the 2030s, highlighting its potential to connect remote areas and provide a lifeline during the disasters.
Experts compare the enthusiasm for flying cars to the days when the aviation industry began with the Wright brothers and the auto industry with the Ford Model T.
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.
Sebastian Thrun, CEO of Kitty Hawk, said it took time for airplanes, cell phones and autonomous cars to gain acceptance.
“But the time between technology and social adoption could be shorter for eVTOL vehicles,” he said.
Chisato Tanaka contributed to this report. – AP
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