I feel like "mass-produced" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Also, insurance is going to be insane.
this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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At Shanghai 2025 car show, there were at least 5 flying car models from major auto players.
There are street legal autogyros that are a lot cheaper and make more sense as a crossover vehicle
a plane. A flying car is called a plane.
I bet it handles like a boat on the roads though.
A plane that looks a bit like a car.
Give me a intercity train or intercity tram any day.
I don't trust must drivers on roads, much less the air. No good will come of this.
I am driving through a slight detour on my commute, it's still 3 lanes but with a slight bend, motherfuckers can't even keep their car in their fucking lane, almost hit 3 people this morning, fuckers can't drive
A truly universal experience
It’s not a flying car. It’s an airplane.
It's by definition trying to merge two opposite specs into one vehicle using the worst aspects of the two.
“The AirCar fulfills a lifelong dream to bring the freedom of flight into the hands of everyday people.”
The price? Between $800,000 and $1 million, depending on specs.
Don't forget the cost and time investment in getting your pilots licence.
Also there is no way this is going to be legal to drive on public roads in most countries - just look at the massive tail boom that sticks out. This is just a fancy aircraft for people that want an overcomplicated Cessna.
What's crazy is you can build a kit plane for less than what this costs, and flying a kit plane does NOT need a pilot license in the US.
I couldn’t find specs skimming through the article, but it doesn’t look like it would fit in any normal parking space. Driving around might be as unwieldy as a motorhome or box truck, without the height advantage when you inevitably drive over a curb while turning. Doing that might also make it un-airworthy.
The tail boom is massive compared to a sports car but I think the folded-up package looks not bigger than a giant American SUV.
Speaking as one who routinely has trouble parking a motor home and driving over curbs with it — this big awkward-looking vehicle doesn’t look like a great city-car but it does not compete with motor homes for the awkwardness prize.
Do you see what happens, Larry?
Mass-Produced
I want to see these masses who can pay the million :)
an assembly line that can make 2 per year still qualifies as mass production. At the level of people who can afford a million you can't sell more than a couple per year anyway. There are a few car companies that have production numbers in that range.
A million and get a pilot licence.
I mean you can get a licence for 20-30k, the maintenance is deadly on a plane though, you could buy a very nice car each year on that money.
Sweet. We need more ways for the 1% to kill themselves.
Or you could buy a Skyhawk, three Toyota Camrys and fuel for a year.
Looks a bit like in "The Man With The Golden Gun"
Okay I will admit it was impressive to see how they solved where to stow the wings and essentially shrink the airplane footprint to a long car footprint, but who is this for? Who out there has $1mil to blow and is like, "I have to drive directly from the tarmac to my hotel"?
This thing needs 300m of runway in its airplane form to get airborne, so forget city or even suburban takeoffs. And you're not going to just drive this thing around. At the end of the day, this is still a (very fancy) plane that drives.
What problem does this solve? And is that problem worth all the negatives this brings?
No
If wings don’t fold, fold your brain.
I can see this work as a cab service. Pick me up at home and drop me off at my destination hotel/office. Within a single country this will shorten travel time enormously and for those paid enough by the hour that might come out to be cheaper than wasting time on travel.