
Flying car prototype ready by end of 2017, says Airbus CEO - jaboutboul
http://venturebeat.com/2017/01/16/flying-car-prototype-ready-by-end-of-2017-says-airbus-ceo/
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FabHK
To misappropriate what Stephan Zweig is said to have said about Brazil:

Flying cars are the transport of the future, and always will be.

Nitpicks:

1\. Ready for a demo flight, maybe. To get it in production takes ages in
aviation: The amphibious ICON (iCon?) A5 was first flown in 2008, the first
production aircraft was out in 2014, but customers have not yet received any
actual deliveries [1].

2\. Flying cars? Very few of these new concept aircraft are actually _cars_ ,
i.e. designed for extended time on the road. (Exception maybe the Terrafugia
Transition: first flown in 2009, deliveries expected "between 2015 and 2016"
according to Wikipedia [2].).

Not sure what's a good name for these new ones, maybe VSVA (very small VTOL
aircraft) or EPA (electric personal aircraft) or something.

Ehang [3] and Volocopter [4] are testing multicopters ("drones") already, for
1 and 2 pax, respectively. Personally, I don't like the low rotors of the
Ehang - looks like a recipe for disaster to me. Lilium looks interesting, too
[5]. I hope some of them materialise soon at reasonable prices -- though we
might need some more breakthroughs in battery technology.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICON_A5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICON_A5)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrafugia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrafugia)

[3] [http://www.ehang.com/ehang184](http://www.ehang.com/ehang184)

[4]
[http://www.volocopter.com/index.php/en/](http://www.volocopter.com/index.php/en/)

[5] [http://lilium-aviation.com/](http://lilium-aviation.com/)

