If you have $135,000, you could own a flying car in a matter of months. Not years. Months. That’s how close we are. And even if you don’t envision one in your driveway, you’ll be able to hire one for a short trip when you want to arrive in style.
This is all part of the new Advanced Air Mobility niche we discussed here in May. Use cases include urban, regional, public transit, cargo and recreational niches.
We’ll tell you more about this, but can we ask a favor first? If you buy one, please land it in front of a high-end restaurant, flip the keys to the valet, then send us a snapshot of his expression.
Alef aloft
For years, we’ve all been asking: “Where’s my flying car?” Fact is, any number of challenges needed to be overcome.
At the top of that list is power. Battery performance, range and payload capacity were the critical factors. The engineers also had to figure out how to configure the wings so that your flying car could also function as a … car.
These issues have each been addressed, and we now know of at least three flying car models that have been approved by the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority for personal use. (At least five Europeans are also in the mix, as is at least one Chinese firm.) Joby Aviation (NYSE:JOBY), Beta Technologies, Volocopter and other designers are even farther ahead with their models, but theirs are aircraft-only without the ability to pull into a suburban garage.
The Alef Model A, a road-drivable, electric, vertical-takeoff-and-landing flying car, is backed by Tim Draper, the Silicon Valley investors who bankrolled Elon Musk. According to eVTOL News, Alef will deliver preorders of the two-passenger aircraft in time for Christmas 2025. (How do you explain to the kids all the reindeer parts on the lawn? We got nothing.)
While it can park in a standard parking space, it can only crawl along at around 25 mph on the road; its cruising speed is not yet published, but it has to be faster than that. That said, it can only fly about 110 miles on a charge with two people and 200 pounds of payload, while it can drive 200 miles.
The Model A boasts a choice in powertrain: electric or hydrogen. While this sounds like an environmentally driven decision, it’s mainly a matter of force vs. mass. We’ve reached the point where these energy sources – as heavy as they are – have become lighter than a more complex internal-combustion system with a full tank of carbon-based fuel.
Alef’s was the first flying car to win FAA approval for flight testing and, now that the door has been unsealed, others are coming up behind.
The Doroni H1-X is scheduled for delivery in 2026. The prototype has already been flight-tested and Doroni says the commercial model will go wheels-up (technically, wheels-sideways) by the end of this year.
Aska is another flying car ready for vertical takeoff. Its A5 model boasts a 250-mile range, but is still in the tethered flight stage, so that’s entirely hypothetical.
Flight regulations are in flight
Regulatory concerns include noise pollution and other environmental impacts, as well as such obvious questions as “Who’s allowed to fly these?” and “How are we going to manage a whole new class of air traffic?”
A lot of this will be addressed by the FAA’s pending MOSAIC rule, which should be finalized next year. An acronym for “Modernization of Special Airworthiness Certification,” it would more than double the allowable weight of a light sport aircraft. That’s been 1,320 pounds, up from zero pounds 20 years ago because LSAs didn’t exist prior to 2004.
That’s also when they invented the LSA pilot, who must meet these stringent conditions:
- Be at least 16 years old,
- Speak and read English, and
- Be healthy enough to qualify for a state driver’s license.
At least, that’s all you need to get started. Now you have to pass a written test, spend around $10,000 and 30 hours on lessons, then take the practical.
Doroni told Flying magazine’s Jack Daleo that the H1-X is “so intuitive that a four-year-old could fly it.” A ton-and-a-half block of plastic and lithium hurtling thousands of miles above the earth in excess of 100 mph? Maybe we need to wait until the kids prove they can be trusted with their cell phones first.
What MOSAIC does is expand the LSA class – which includes balloons and powered parachutes as well as gyroplanes and simplified-control aircraft – to include personal eVTOLs.
Lessons to learn – and teach
A lot of very rich kids are going to want to fly their dates to the prom next year and, if the FAA starts granting airworthiness certificates, the hardware will be available. The Prom King and his court will need help getting their LSA licenses, though. That’s where some entrepreneurs will find an opportunity. They’d need to get specific-model training first but that won’t take long, and then they’ll be able to open up LSA schools.
And to pay off their first flying car, they could do what everyone else does to pay off their new ground transportation: hire out as a rideshare. Such cities as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles can’t wait for these, because they’re quieter and less polluting than helicopters. They might even beat Uber to the market.
Of course, the air traffic control kinks need to be worked out, but people will probably be able to fly their personal eVTOL anywhere that corporate helicopters are allowed. After that, we’re in uncharted territory. It’s hard enough to get drivers to look left and right before pulling into traffic – how are we going to make them look up and down as well now too?
The next question is: Where can you drive it? At least three states – New York, Pennsylvania and Minnesota – are looking to pass legislation that would license them as if they were any other class of street-legal vehicle.
If you’re not inclined to open your own LSA academy, you could still benefit from the eVTOL craze through passive investment. Every one of the companies mentioned here are looking for direct funding, and it’s only a matter of time before publicly traded companies or SPACs acquire them. Joby, backed by Uber, is already on the Big Board as a publicly-traded stock. It’s hard to keep your eye in the sky and your ear to the ground, so you might want to discuss investment opportunities with a trusted financial advisor.
