Will Flying Cars Ever Be Feasible for Personal Transportation?

Introduction

The concept of flying cars is certainly not new. The historical record is replete with accounts of flying vehicles of various types in mythological and religious texts dating to antiquity. More recently, the flying cars featured in science fiction books, the television series The Jetsons, and the movie Blade Runner, among numerous others, have popularized the idea with many consumers. The aviation industry is now responding with hundreds of prototypes on the drawing board and dozens of flying car models already in production (Keil 2022). Despite these trends, it remains unclear whether flying cars for personal transportation will ever overcome the multiple challenges confronting the industry. This paper reviews the literature to assess whether flying cars will ever be a feasible means of personal transportation, presenting arguments both in support of and against this proposition before offering a conclusion.

Why Passenger Flying Cars Will Soon Be a Reality

Passenger flying cars are part of a rapidly emerging concept known as "urban air mobility," which involves the transportation of passengers and goods using innovative aviation technologies — most especially electric, rotor-powered vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicles. In this regard, Jiang et al. (2023) report that the concept of urban air mobility "encompasses a diverse range of VTOL vehicles that function more like passenger-carrying drones for on-demand transportation. Among them, the car-like VTOL is advantageous due to its compact configuration, safe rotors, high user affinity, and technological fashion" (115).

Flying cars are already a reality, and current trends indicate that the supply — if not the demand — for these vehicles will continue to increase well into the foreseeable future. Many companies in the aviation industry currently regard flying cars as "the next big thing" and are making significant investments in their own versions. According to one market analyst, "By some counts, a staggering 700 designs for electric/hybrid-electric flying vehicles are in development, and many are already in the air" (Coffey-Rosich 2022, 28). Moreover, the global market for flying cars was already estimated at more than $8.5 billion in 2021, and this figure is expected to increase to $30.8 billion by 2030 (Coffey-Rosich).

Some of the major actors actively involved in the research and development of flying cars include NASA, the U.S. Army, Airbus, and Boeing, as well as smaller startups such as Opener and Lilium, all of which have completed test flights in recent months (Ehline 2022). Likewise, Uber has announced plans to launch a fleet of air taxis that will cruise at up to 2,000 feet (Ehline).

All of the flying cars currently under development or in commercial production have incorporated the latest photonics technologies, including LiDAR sensors as well as visible-light and infrared cameras to improve operational safety, meaning that "humans are overcoming the long-standing tradeoff between the promise of the Jetson mobile and the reality of flawed human drivers" (Coffey-Rosich, 7). Unfortunately, despite this massive influx of interest and investment, flawed human drivers are among the least of the flying car industry's problems, and it is unlikely that these vehicles will ever be a feasible means of personal transportation for the reasons discussed below.

Why Passenger Flying Cars Will Never Be Feasible

Prior to the Wright brothers proving the concept, there were plenty of naysayers who predicted that the cumbersome airplane would "never get off the ground" — for many of the same reasons that experts today predict passenger flying cars will never be feasible. While vehicular crashes on conventional highways can result in serious injury or death, drivers at least have a fighting chance of survival even under the worst circumstances. Likewise, fixed-wing aircraft (e.g., airplanes) and rotary-wing aircraft (e.g., helicopters) also have a reasonable chance of surviving a mechanical or other mid-air failure. Multi-engine aircraft, for example, can either continue flying with the loss of one or two engines or glide to a safe landing — as demonstrated in the celebrated "Miracle on the Hudson" — and skilled helicopter pilots can use an autorotation maneuver to land safely if their engines fail. Moreover, sophisticated jet aircraft have numerous redundancies built into their systems in case of failure, accounting in large part for the aviation industry's stellar safety track record (Pica and Kozuba 2019).

By sharp contrast, a mechanical or electronics failure in a personal flying car would likely result in a catastrophic, uncontrolled plummet to earth. Flying cars could neither glide safely to the ground nor autorotate to a landing in the same fashion as conventional helicopters, given their ducted fan lift system rotors (Jiang et al. 2023). In other words, flying cars that stop operating in mid-air are immediately transformed into so many rocks, succumbing to gravity with devastating results.

In addition, even the best batteries for electrically powered flying cars are heavy, and existing technology limits manufacturers' ability to expand battery storage without compromising weight restrictions. The current range limitation of fewer than 100 miles on most commercially available models leaves no margin for sightseeing, traffic delays, or unforeseen events that could deplete precious battery power even when everything operates perfectly. It is highly unlikely that these challenges can be overcome in the foreseeable future to the extent that passenger flying cars would ever become truly feasible, even if they are already a technical reality.

It is reasonable to suggest that few consumers would be willing to drive conventional cars if the road dropped out from under them when they ran out of gas, had a flat tire, or their engine overheated — yet this is essentially the calculus with flying cars. Not only is driving a car the most difficult and dangerous thing most people do on a daily basis, the challenge and danger become far greater when upward, downward, and lateral movement are added to the controls. Even assuming that fully autonomous passenger flying cars with 100 percent piloting reliability are on the horizon, any catastrophic failure under that scenario would simply be fully automatic.

Conclusion

Besides colonies on the moon and Mars, American consumers have been promised flying cars in the near future time and again — and now they are here. Admittedly, flying cars sound appealing. Who would not prefer zipping through the air at 200 miles per hour, free of traffic jams and with an unsurpassed view, to get to work or the mall in a fraction of the time? This scenario does not reflect reality, however. Tens of thousands of flying cars jockeying for airspace and parking would be a recipe for disaster, assuming drivers actually reach their destinations. Limited battery power and range, high costs, fallible mechanical and electronic systems, and flawed human operators will keep flying cars restricted to a small number of enthusiasts — joining the ranks of hang-glider and ultralight pilots who accept significant personal risk in exchange for thrills, rather than serving as a feasible individual transportation alternative.

Works Cited

Coffey-Rosich, Valerie. "Electric Flight Is Taking off, Thanks to Photonics: Flying Cars, EVTOLs, or Giant Drones: Whatever You Call Them, Photonics Are Playing a Large Part In the Burgeoning Commercial Reality of Electric, Autonomous Air Mobility." Laser Focus World, vol. 58, no. 12, Dec. 2022, pp. 27–31.

Ehline, Michael. "Are Flying Cars a Recipe for Extra Catastrophic Car Crash Injuries?" Ehline Law Firm, 2022, https://ehlinelaw.com/blog/flying-cars-catastrophic-car-crash-injuries.

Jiang, Hanjie, et al. "Aerodynamic Design and Evaluation of a Ducted Fan Lift System for Vertical Takeoff and Landing Flying Cars." Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part A: Journal of Power & Energy, vol. 237, no. 1, Feb. 2023, pp. 115–25.

Keil, Roger. "Of Flying Cars and Pandemic Urbanism: Splintering Urban Society in the Age of Covid-19." Journal of Urban Technology, vol. 29, no. 1, Jan. 2022, pp. 29–37.

Pica, Jan, and Jaroslaw Kozuba. "Safety of Complex Aircraft Ergatic Systems." Transport Problems: An International Scientific Journal, vol. 14, no. 2, Apr. 2019, pp. 101–10.