![]() UAM companies and boosters say flying cars can reduce traffic, provide affordable mobility for everybody, and create a less polluted environment. This is an industry estimated to be worth $1.5 to $3 trillion by 2040. There are all kinds of other proposed applications for these things: regional or rural flights, transporting cargo, hovering ambulances or troop carriers. So, there are a lot of people who really want to see flying cars in our near future. It estimates, among other things, that we’ll have 23,000 vehicles in the air by the year 2030, and that a ride will be about $30 a pop.īillions and billions of dollars are flowing into this industry, from hedge funds and people like Google founder Larry Page. The city’s UAM blueprint is based on a report called the Principles of the Urban Sky, which LA put together with the World Economic Forum. But some startups are also looking to serve as regional connectors, flying from Silverlake to Palm Springs, for example. The idea of people owning their own flying car is not a significant part of the business model. In the early years, it’ll be expensive to fly, but the goal is to bring the price-per-ride down so that people fly regularly - as a rideshare. The industry sees this ramping up over a decade or more, even if the mayor’s office touts flyers by 2023. Los Angeles is partnering with both Hyundai and a startup named Archer. There are big companies like Airbus and Boeing, and little companies you’ve never heard of with names like Joby and Wisk and Lilium. Some are designed to be piloted, some autonomous. There are “electric take-off-and-landing” (e-VTOL) vehicles. Some look like big quadcopter drones, some look like Cessnas with a bunch of extra propellers. There are dozens of companies around the world trying to break into this space with their own version of the flying car. You might be surprised to know just how big this industry is. Will flying cars arrive on time? Will they deliver the clean, equitable future we’ve been promised by sci-fi? Or is it all just the 20th century transportation mistakes all over again, but just a little higher up? … You can say anything about it, right? It's, ‘Oh, yeah, it's gonna be affordable, and we're gonna have this many vehicles in seven years,’” he said. “It's just the beauty of technology that doesn't exist yet. #Futuristic hover car full#That’s UCLA urban planning professor Michael Manville gently pointing out that the transportation industry is full of promises and timelines - self- driving cars, electric vehicles, high-speed rail. So if you need a definition, just let me know it: This sounds to me like bullshit.” ![]() “We have this technical term in transportation that I'm going to use. This futurist optimism is not held by everyone. We know that well in Los Angeles, where traffic is among the worst in our country, and our air quality has been too, even though we’ve made huge strides.” “We need to make sure that AAM doesn’t create flyover highways accessible only to those with the economic means … without creating more sprawl. And it has the potential to reduce emissions, to connect communities, and to grow our economies,” he said. “For this technology, the sky is literally the limit. It’s been a hub for the aerospace industry for more than half a century, so flying cars extend that destiny. In late April, Garcetti spoke at a House Subcommittee hearing on aerospace innovation, where he made the sales pitch for LA as a leader in advanced aerial mobility (AAM). Garcetti is very bullish on flying cars, though it’s not clear whether the city’s dedication to urban air mobility (UAM) will change when and if he decamps to India. In December, Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office announced the creation of an Urban Air Mobility Partnership, a new public-private merger with Hyundai to get “low-noise, electric aircraft flying in our local airspace by 2023.” The partnership says it will be working through safety and infrastructure issues, including figuring out the logistics for a “vertiport” where these things can take off and land.Ī dreamy Hyundai promo features near-future travel in LA and San Francisco, with special attention to how bad car traffic is … and how you can rise above it. Did you know The Future may be only a few short years away? Did you know that you might soon see actual flying cars in the skies over Los Angeles? And that the city has a goal to have tens of thousands of them zipping around? ![]()
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