Saw an old TED talk on Terrafugia's flying car light sport concept in 2009 and wanted to know where they were today. See attached link:

https://www.terrafugia.com/terrafugia-i ... ing-group/

They have gone through a number of iterations, and is much more expensive than planned but have approvals from both FAA and DOT for a current production design. However, of more interest is that Geely of China (which owns Volvo and Lotus and two electric car companies) just bought them and invested in a west coast facility, hiring over 100 new people. They also have a plans to design (Rotax and possibly future electric powered) air/road vehicles for commercial (delivery) applications. Thoughts?

The founder and others have had good jobs for 10+ years on investor money rather than customer money. Nice work if you can get it. Eventually the enterprise will have to be supported by customer dollars, but that seems far off from what I read in the papers.

The last I read about them, the LSA which was flying and had a reasonable path to market is acknowledged to not be the future of the company. The future is a much more complex and expensive VTOL craft. Many more dollars and years of development needed. Rolling the dice on a bigger gamble.

Would be fun to work there! I would not invest, though.

IMO it has nothing to do with the design of the the flying car and everything to do with where to land them all if everyone has them or if only a few people have them. You just gonna pull up to the front door of the mall and blow everyone away with your prop wash?

Anything that flies with small wings is going to transform terrific quantities of money and fuel into prop wash and noise. Because of that, if any of these things do make it to market they'll sure be fun to watch!

Most flying car designs have exposed, spinning props also known as "decapitators". You just gonna land in the crowded mall parking lot?

Let's say the mall sections off part of the parking lot to manage the flying car traffic...... how you gonna manage 100 of them? You don't see helicopters landing at the mall and they exist right now.

Most flying car designs have exposed, spinning props also known as "decapitators". You just gonna land in the crowded mall parking lot?

I don't think the idea is that the family loads up and goes to the mall that is 15-30 miles away in this thing... at least not in the airplane configuration. What they are going for is that someone might be able to fly to a meeting, or vacation or whatever, land, fold the wings and drive to the office. Rather then needing to rent a car etc. In other words land at a local airport, helipad etc. then drive the rest of the way. Initially I don't know that this is suppose to be a door to door solution to any address in America.

Personally I think self driving cars will be on the roads in mass long before we see these adopted. You still have all of the normal issues with flying. Stuff like weather, inspections, AD's, BRS replacement costs, etc. with these things. I just don't see people opting for them in huge numbers.

My personal opinion is until they develop Jetson's technology or at least can replicate the cars in Blade Runner, these things will never catch on. A crappy car that's also a crappy plane (or vice versa) is not a recipe for success in my book.

Sounds like another visionary (sales and marketing genius) in the car (now space) industry.

This is exactly my issue with the current "Transition" LSA that is flying in prototype now. It's nowhere near as good an airplane as a Bonanza or SR22. VFR-only, 100MPH instead of 200mph. And then when you drive it, it's like the world's most awkward Winnebago. Ungainly, underpowered, hard to maneuver in crowded cities and hard to park.

They talk about flying up to a line of weather, landing, and driving through it on roads. But if you look at the surface area / weight of the vehicle, I'm not sure it would be very good to drive in heavy winds and rain.

Imagine how much a fender bender in city traffic would cost, when the repairs all have to be aircraft quality repairs to wings, tail, etc. What will the insurance be like?

Most people would be far better off flying a Bonanza or SR22 to the nearest airport, and getting a normal rental car or taxi/Uber from there. And in fact, that is what is winning in the market. In a world where Enterprise rent-a-car can get a car to almost any FBO before you land, and Uber is available in almost every town within a few minutes....it's hard to beat that.

Its been around a while going nowhere....when all of a sudden, a few week ago a major Chinese company buys them and pledges tons of money. Dumb money I guess. I am more curious why they would do that?

You are missing the point of a "flying car". It lands at an AIRPORT, converts to car mode, and DRIVES to the mall with no props spinning.

Thus the main point is that a flying car has to be more convenient than a rental or Uber to make any sort of sense.

Which it doesn't, really. A flying car is a very bad airplane that becomes a very bad car. Much better to fly a good airplane and then rent/hail a good car.

Mike C.

I think self driving cars will be big competition to general aviation and even the airlines. Lets say you have a trip planned to a destination 500 mi away for the following day. Instead of getting up early to catch a flight, you leave the previous evening in your self driving vehicle, maybe a minivan, and immediately fall asleep. The next morning you awake at you destination. The car can take you most anywhere on your own schedule with limited hassle and expense. Traveling at night after your normal work day would be a big time saver.

What are the reasons Geely would buy this company and invest millions? Porsche seems to be looking at it too with talk of air taxis.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=149979

Several people seem to be seriously working on solid state battery solutions:

https://about.bnef.com/blog/goodenough- ... teries-qa/

How do you handle door dings and fender benders? Curb rash? All would render it un-airworthy.

Not only that, if I still need to use an airport..... they have rental cars.

A flying car is both a crappy airplane and a crappy car. It's good at nothing.