The Future of Transportation

The self-driving car and the flying car have almost reached commercialization, so why not combine the two?

That’s just what Terrafugia aims to do with the TF-X.

If you have yet to see the video of VW’s “Hover Car Concept”, it’s definitely worth the few minutes. Volkswagen translates to ‘the people’s car’, and the levitating car idea was the result of user submissions.

For the concept to realistically work, it would require electromagnetic strips built into our roads to generate levitation via electromagnetic levitation. VW is not currently in a position to manufacture vehicles like this, though the contest and publicity generated were stellar for the company image.

The idea of a hovercraft or hovercar has been the subject of science fiction for decades, and the way things are heading, it’s not farfetched to think that we could see something like this in the relatively near future. After all, the flying car is here, and so is the self-driving one.

Many uninformed individuals still think flying cars are the thing of science fiction. If you didn’t see our article from last March, there are several companies working on prototypes of a roadable aircraft that you can park in your garage at home. The company that is furthest along in the process, Terrafugia, successfully completed their first flight with their version of the flying car called the Transition today. Over 100 people have put down $10,000 deposits on the vehicle that’s expected to have a price tag of $279,000. Expect to see the Transition in the air within the next year!

We take for granted our ability to drive hundreds of miles in just a few hours time. We don’t think twice about being able to stand on two different continents in the same day. For thousands of years, we were limited to where we could walk. For hundreds of years, we were limited to where we could float. It’s only in the last 100 years, the blink of an eye, that the automobile and airplane have enabled us to span the globe. The evolution of travel will continue into the future, and we are nearing a new step in that process.