Is Toyota Developing a Flying Car?
Considering The Jetsons laid out a flawless concept design back in the early ’60s, it’s hard to imagine we still don’t have a proper flying car. But Toyota may just be hoping to change all that.
It’s recently been discovered that back in March of 2014, Toyota had actually filled out a patent application with the U.S. Patent Office for something described wherein as an aerocar. According to an NBC News report, the application refers to “an aerocar including a stackable wing and methods for morphing the stackable wing… atop the aerocar.”
Though no plans were included as to how the aerocar (gosh, that’s fun to say!) would generate enough thrust for take-off, the patent application does show the schematic below, which illustrates how the car’s wing would extend upwards from the top of the roof.
Before we go getting too excited about a Toyota Aerocar, though, we should recall a statement from last year, shortly after Toyota filled out those patent papers. Toyota’s managing officer of the technical administration group, Hiroyoshi Yoshiki, said that one of the company’s “most advanced” R&D labs was working on vehicles which are capable of hovering above ground to avoid friction. Ostensibly, the exec let the world know that Toyota was hard at work on a sort of hovercar, which is rad, but not necessarily a flying car like the one you’re imagining. And Yoshiki didn’t say much more than that. Nor has anyone else, officially.
So it would appear that we’re still not very close to getting a real flying car like the ones in The Jetsons, Blade Runner, or Back to the Future. But if anyone can turn fantasy into reality, I’m putting my money on Toyota. Heck, if their sibling company can create a hoverboard, then why can’t an aerocar be next? (Please note, I’ll be hedging my bet by also putting money on the Terrafugia prototype shown up top, which is currently being developed by a bunch of M.I.T. graduates.)
