The World's First Mass-Produced Flying Car Is Here and It Costs $1 Million

Mass-Produced

I want to see these masses who can pay the million :)

A million doesn't get you what it used to, and you'd be shocked at how many quiet millionaires there are out there.
- There might be a lot more millionaires than before, but it’d still be a much smaller number who could drop $1M on a flying car.
- OK. Yes, then I want to get this shock :)
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.

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.

Give me a intercity train or intercity tram any day.

I don't think I've ever seen an intercity tram before. They tend to be strictly local affairs. Probably because local governments have to lay the lines, and there would be some kind of giant argument if it went across jurisdictions.
- I've seen them in Germany, but between relatively small cities and towns.
  Not Just Bikes made a video about Trams not long ago.

“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.
- 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.
- 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.
Do you see what happens, Larry?

I feel like "mass-produced" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Also, insurance is going to be insane.

Also “car” - can my local mechanic service it and give it a flying certificate? If not, it’s not a car.
More like a barely road-worthy airplane.
You don't get insurance on these
- You're right; I forget insurance is for the poor.

Yeah, I too once thought flying cars were the best idea since sliced bread. I've since grown up and realized that they're just airplanes with extra steps, cause it's not like you're ever going to be able to land it on a highway or whatever. It will always be cheaper to just buy an airplane and a car and use one to get to the other.

I guess the problem is that if you take your car to the plane, then your plane somewhere else, suddenly you don't have your car. And then if you drive somewhere else you don't have your plane any more.
I think it's pretty obvious that rental cars and commercial flights make a lot more sense for most scenarios. But I guess it's possible to imagine scenarios where this vehicle makes sense, either for extensive round trips or for places where car rentals don't exist but the roads are nevertheless pretty good.
- Yeah I was gonna say, there's a whole-ass rental car industry exactly for that kind of purpose. But this isn't the sort of thing you buy because it 'makes sense', you buy it because it's cool and you have fuck-you money so that's enough of a reason.
- This is more complicated than you think. The vast majority of airports in the US are tiny little things you would barely know are there unless you're a pilot. Most don't have rental car services. Many are in communities where even lyft/uber are not available.
  The flying car thing is still pretty dumb. But it's not as dumb as it might first sound. One of the #1 problems my family has when we fly our (very small, very old) plane on trips is how to get from the airport to anyplace reasonable.
It's also that usual cars don't fall down on someone's head. And can just stay on one place for traffic jams.
Not possible until Star Wars style repulsors are created, and even then TBH not that cool.

The vehicle, certified for airworthiness and flight-tested over 170 hours with more than 500 takeoffs and landings, is now headed for mass production.

Jesus fuck please tell me that's a typo and they left some zeros off. Your average commercial pilot has more than that before any airline is even willing to consider hiring them, that is absolutely not sufficient testing.

Still, early adopters may face bureaucratic turbulence. Potential buyers must be both licensed drivers and certified pilots.

No shit. And that is never going to change, becoming a certified pilot is a lot fuckin harder than getting a driver's license, and for very good reasons. If some BMW-driving cunt can't even be arsed to use his turn signal do you really want to ease the "bureaucratic turbulence" just so he can fuck up and crash into a packed airliner? These things still have to use runways, the people flying them still need to know how to behave themselves at airports, how to identify and avoid restricted airspace, how to communicate with ATC and how to behave if (let's be honest, when) they get Intercepted.

And all of this so you can have a car that's worse at being a car, and an airplane that's worse at being an airplane, but hey at least you won't have to book a rental car at your destination airport, which I remind you they still have to use.

As long as they're only using smaller airports. Let the millionaires and billionaires have this. It's like another ocean gate scenario.
I agree with everything you're saying though haha.
- The ocean depths arent above innocent people's heads.
I still don't get how these companies keep getting funded. There's literally no way these things will ever become a thing. It's simply ridiculous.
- I'd be willing to bet if you put a calendar reminder in one year to check back on this you'd find that this car did not actually reach the mass-produced stage of industry.
- Investors and venture capitalists fronting money and riding the Hype-Go-Round, but when the music stops and the lights go out someone's going to be out a shitload of money.

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.

So it's a small plane then?

I swear I saw this on TV like 20 years ago, it's a stupid idea, if I wanted a plane I would buy a plane and then drive to the airport in my car, attempting to combine the two technologies just makes both of them worse.

Or you could buy a Skyhawk, three Toyota Camrys and fuel for a year.

It’s called a plane.

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

There are street legal autogyros that are a lot cheaper and make more sense as a crossover vehicle

https://youtu.be/8VKfqzmLohM

I hope its a popular buy among all our billionaires.

Damn, we really got flying cars before

GTA 6
Elder Scrolls 6
Half Life 3 (but barely? Hopefully?)

It's a Lamborghini with wings stuck on the sides, it's not a flying car.

Sweet. We need more ways for the 1% to kill themselves.

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.

Just find the tallest rooftop parking structure with a low wall sturdy enough for a ramp.
If it can handle a grass field, those are everywhere. OTOH, be cheaper and easier to fly a Cessna and spatter cars around at your destinations.

We have had helicoptors for all these decades

Oh just like they did 5yrs ago every 5 years since the invention of powered flight

That's not very expensiv...

Seen this like 10 years ago lol

Looks a bit like in "The Man With The Golden Gun"

That's not the "flying car" anyone envisioned or wanted. That's just an airplane but a lot shittier.

What problem does this solve? And is that problem worth all the negatives this brings?

The problem it solves is that most small airports are located miles away from the communities they serve. That isn't an issue with a car, but it does suck when traveling.
Uber/Lyft have mostly solved this problem. However. There are plenty of small rural communities or small vacation destinations which are too rural to have taxis or uber/lyft.
Is it worth it? No. But it's a legit problem
No

If wings don’t fold, fold your brain.

No thank you, I'll take a drone cab over this any day.

I'd rather have a FLDSMDFR. Sorry not sorry. People already drive like ass on the road. I don't need that in the sky.

I think I'd like to have the full alphabet instead.
- https://cloudywithachanceofmeatballs.fandom.com/wiki/FLDSMDFR

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.

Apart from all the discussion regarding how stupid this is, how the fuck would this even fit on a road? I doubt the wings would be durable enough if they were retractable. This shit would take up 2 lanes and fuck up any and all intersections. And as a added bonus, it would fuck with everyone elses perception who are used to the distances you keep away from regular vehicles when theyre turning in front of you. This shitheap wouldnt even make it to the airport because someone will probably misjudge the turn radius with the wings and fuck it up on the way there.

They fold to the rear. So apparently they are - at least supposed to be - durable enough.

At Shanghai 2025 car show, there were at least 5 flying car models from major auto players.