No Flying Cars, Please

The Jetsons Had It Wrong.

Image by the author with ImageFX

We’ve all seen flying cars in movies (like the Star Wars saga) or TV shows (the Jetsons, anyone?), but having them in real life has remained elusive for decades. Is this due to technological hurdles, or is there something else?

Is it a fantasy, an ideal, or a practical innovation?

Let’s find out.

The idea of flying cars has remained appealing for decades. I’ve seen YouTube videos on the topic with millions of views; the prompt “flying car” yields 3,830,000 results.

Why is there an enduring interest in getting aloft, not inside a plane with the seatbelt strapped on, but instead, in the freedom of a car that can lift its wheels off the ground?

We all saw amazing flying cars in Blade Runner, Star Wars, Back to the Future, The Fifth Element, and, of course, in The Jetsons. But we are (painfully?) aware that these are only fantasies.

Flying cars are cool, no doubt about it.

The question is: could the neck-breaking technological progress we experience in the modern world make flying cars a reality? Should it?

For the practical benefit of flying cars, consider this scenario: you are stuck in the LA car traffic at rush hour (or Austin, or Mexico City), and you must get to the airport ASAP. It’s hot, claxons sound all around, and you get frustrated. Wouldn’t it be great to push a button that activates the “TAKE OFF” function, and instantly, with a sounding roar, the car gets aloft, you see from above the sea of stuck cars with tortured drivers and passengers inside. In less than 10 minutes, you’ll be at the airport!

Yes, all that sounds amazing, but a reality check is needed.

Joby, Archer, and Lilium

Fantasies aside, in the last five to ten years, several companies have developed eVTOL (electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing) vehicles not just as proof of concept but also with the aim of achieving short-term commercial success.

And it’s impressive to see what they’ve accomplished in just a few years. I consider the frontrunners to be three private companies: Joby Aviation, Archer, and Lilium. Let’s dig a bit into what each one offers:

• Joby Aviation (USA): 6-rotor tilt-rotor aircraft, ~150-mile range, 200 mph.
  It’s backed by Toyota, Delta Air Lines, and Uber (which partnered with and then spun off Elevate). When we see Delta as a backer, you might think they want to offer an alternative plane for trips, but that’s not the case; they would rather provide an air taxi service to airports to feed their flights with passengers from downtown.

• Archer Aviation (USA): Fixed-wing with 12 rotors (some tilt), range of ~60 miles.
  Backed by United Airlines as a partner for airport transfers (e.g., Manhattan to JFK). Very much the same use case (air taxi) as Joby.

• Lilium (Germany): Their six-passenger Jet has 30 electric ducted fans integrated into the wings and a range of ~155 miles.

All three frontrunners intend to start commercial operations in 2025. They will be operated by certified pilots. Currently, they are waiting to receive FAA certification (or equivalent in Europe) to begin their flights.

The information above shows that Archer focuses on providing air taxi service to airports. With its 60-mile range, it’s not suitable for inter-city travel.

Air taxis could be helpful to many business travellers. Instead of a one-hour commute to the airport, they could get there in 10 minutes from a “vertiport” above the building they work in. Air taxis are definitely going to be (at least initially) way more expensive than regular cabs, but prices are expected to become similar over time, especially considering that the air driver works five times less than the cab driver for the same commute.

It’s no wonder Uber is backing Joby. Air taxis to the airport are a great use case that regular Uber cabs now serve.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the German Lilium has the most extended range and the largest passenger capacity.

To understand why Lilium could have a clear use case as a proper airplane, we need to realize that Europe is not America: cities are much closer to each other there. For instance, the trip from Düsseldorf to Koblenz in Germany is 100 miles, while the journey from Cologne to Frankfurt is 95 miles.

Even for international flights, the distances are short: 70 miles from Geneva, Switzerland, to Lyon, France, 155 miles from Milan, Italy, to Geneva, Switzerland, and 100 miles from Barcelona to Perpignan, France.

For those short flights, a Lilium jet has enormous advantages over a Boeing 737: passengers board a Lilium jet at “vertiports” in downtown areas, rather than traveling to a remote airport. Europeans are accustomed to taking their trains from the city center.

Wait, air taxis are not flying cars!

You could think that with Joby, Archer and Lilium I’m cheating about flying cars: in those three cases, you’re not the pilot: you are no more than a passenger with the seatbelt strapped on — with some practical advantages, like not having to book your flight weeks in advance nor doing a big commute to an airport.

When we say “flying car,” we mean one where we are the pilot, right? We mean, even a vehicle we could store in our garage, right?

So let me tell you one brutal truth about the purest “flying car” desire:

It won’t happen—not now, not ever.

Real flying cars that make everybody a flying driver are not only technologically challenging, but a disaster in the making.

Look, try to imagine Friday nights with flying cars: wasted guys stumble to exit from the bar, struggle to find their flying car, but once they see it, insist they can drive (fly) and refuse to surrender the keys. Overconfident drunk pilots would tilt the joysticks with the precision of a toddler.

Yes, Friday nights (and Saturday as well) would include drunk car pilots racing one another, until one of them ends up crashing into somebody’s house, setting it on fire, and killing those inside.

Some car pilots, less reckless than the drunk ones, would sometimes end up draining the battery before arriving at their destination, then attempting an emergency landing for which they don’t have proper training. Their mourning families would say that they had “an accident.”

Any professional pilot can explain that they are trained for years for a reason. Disciplined flying is not meant for an untrained average Joe.

If flying cars piloted by anybody threaten to become a reality at any point in time, we should oppose them with all our might.

No flying cars—unless they have AI

Now watch the YouTube video with the ridiculous name “Go to Work in a Flying Car,” with an outstanding 10 million views. It shows a two-seat eVTOL that is not piloted — you hop in, and it takes you to your destination, as simple as that.