Flying cars to buy in store soon - but customers are getting a problem

Created: 01/28/2022, 06:58

By: Marcus Efler

Flying cars are among the great technical utopias.

Now a start-up in the USA is opening the first shop for it – and you can buy it there.

New York (USA) - Among the many things that, according to older science fiction films, should have existed for a long time are flying cars: devices for everyone that whiz through the air from one point to the next without traffic jams, and the man can be conveniently parked in a garage.

In recent years there have been repeated attempts to realize such visions, for example in the form of air taxis - many of which, such as a corresponding project by Audi, Airbus and Italdesign, have failed.

("Air Taxi": NASA tests electric flight shuttle - what is the range good for?)

Buying flying cars in store for the first time - but customers get a problem

At the moment, however, there is a gold rush mood again in the so-called "Urban Air Mobility".

Corporations like Hyundai are investing massively in corresponding projects and infrastructure, start-ups like the Dutch-Bavarian company Lilium or AirCar from Slovakia are tinkering with small airplanes that can take off and land anywhere, or even drive on the road.

Some of the devices can even be ordered and will be delivered soon.

(Flying car AirCar creates real distance - but it cannot fulfill an expectation)

Buying flying cars in stores for the first time – is the era of the car over?

The start-up TheArsenal from Miami in Florida is leaning particularly far out of the window: "The car is over", sounds its founder Patrice Meignan.

The first presentable project was based on a classic car: together with Renault, the Americans put together the Air4, an aircraft powered by four propellers in the look of the legendary R4 small car.

Here he is on Instagram:

Now the self-proclaimed mobility revolutionaries went one step further and opened the "world's first shop for flying cars" in Manhattan, as reported by 24auto.de.

In the future, anyone who goes shopping in New York City will be able to order their fliewatüt on the side – that's the promise.

So far, a small seaplane for $ 400,000 (approx. 353,000 euros) has dominated the showroom - which after all actually looks like a combination of boat, plane and cabin scooter.

The Icon A5 has the same name as an Audi, but is dependent on a surface of water to take off and land, so it would at best pass as a flying vehicle in Venice.

(Real hoverboard: This tinkerer flies "Back to the Future")

Take-away flight bag: Icon A5 in the TheArsenal flagship store © TheArsenal

Flying cars to buy in stores for the first time - but will customers ever be allowed to use them?

Real flying cars should soon be available in the flagship store.

However, it seems questionable whether customers will ever be able to use them - and when the utopia of detached individual transport will ever be fulfilled.

Because for everything that flies, you need a pilot's license, which involves considerable effort for training, maintenance and proof of medical fitness.

It is a bet with an uncertain outcome whether some states will eventually introduce relief for the so-called eVTOL (“Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing aircraft”).

In the USA, at least, slow, light devices can currently be flown at low altitudes over private land without a pilot's license.

However, it is more likely that flying cars and air taxis will ultimately be nothing more than an electrically powered subclass of helicopters - with correspondingly high prices for sale and operation and high demands on the pilots.