Terrafugia’s flyable prototype Transition airplane, later assigned tail number N302TF, being shown during SciFoo 2008 at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California. Just behind the airplane are two of Terrafugia’s founders: Samuel Schweighart (L, red shirt), VP of Engineering; and Carl Dietrich (R, beige shirt), CEO/CTO. By Matt Brown from London, England (A flying car) [CC BY 2.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

The global automobile carbon footprint is about to get a significant boost, with the dawn of the age of flying cars.

World’s first flying car to go on sale next month and it could cost more than £300,000

Jasper Hamill
Thursday 27 Sep 2018 9:57 am

The world’s first flying car will be available to pre-order next month. A Chinese company called Terrafugia is preparing to unleash a vehicle called the Transition which can turn from an automobile into an aircraft in just a minute.

It travels at just 100 miles per hour, making it slower than the world’s most sluggish jet, the Soviet PZL M-15 Belphegor which was built to be used on massive state-owned farms. The most striking aspect of the Transition is its folding wings, which extend to allow flight and can be retracted when driving on roads.

It is fitted with a parachute system as well as a ‘boost’ mode to give a ‘brief burst of extra power while flying’. The Chinese news agency Xinhua said pre-sales will begin in October. Terrafugia previously said the Transition would cost $279,000, although a Terrafugia reportedly revised the cost upwards to somewhere between $300k and $400k. This means it could have a price of more than £300,000 in the UK.

‘The Transition is the world’s first practical flying car,’ Terrafugia wrote.

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Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2018/09/27/worlds-first-flying-car-to-go-on-sale-next-month-7983325/

The following is a video of the Terrafugia in action:

At $400k the first flying car is going to be a luxury item, at least initially. But there are plenty of well paid executives who loathe the daily commute, who might find the option of flying over traffic jams an attractive proposition. And in time, if the Terrafugia is a success, less expensive consumer versions of the flying car might become available.