Elon Musk and the battle of the flying cars - The Times

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Ever since the first motorist sat in the first traffic jam, someone has gazed skywards and wondered if there may be a better way to travel. History is littered with attempts to build a flying car. These flights of fancy have tried to satisfy mans’ dream of a car that can slip the gridlock and rise above the school run, leaving everyone else staring up in envy.

Some of the notable attempts have been more cautionary tale than soaring success. The company Advanced Vehicle Engineers (AVE), working out of Van Nuys, California, took a very average car, the Ford Pinto, and mated it to a section of a Cessna Skymaster, thus creating the Mizar in 1971. The result was neither a satisfactory car nor satisfactory aeroplane, and the project stalled, tragically, when a Mizar crashed, killing its creator and the company’s vice-president. The Aerocar was arguably more successful, earning certification from the Civil Aeronautics Administration. However, it was more “roadable aircraft” than flying car and only six were ultimately built between 1949 and 1968.

Too often these wacky creations have been a half-decent plane and terrible car, or vice versa — the vehicular equivalent of the spork. The Jetsons cartoon series is often blamed for planting the dream in the public imagination, promising a daily commute through the sky rather than along the tarmac. We are still waiting for a robot housekeeper too.

Now Elon Musk, our modern-day, real-life Tony Stark, thinks he can finally make it happen. In a move that surprised most, he has relaunched the Tesla Roadster, a car that has spent nearly ten years in the “coming soon” file, but this time with a notable optional extra: flight. Perhaps it’s not really constant flying, more like thrusting, but the Roadster does leave the ground quite spectacularly, as the launch video shows. Tesla calls it an “extraterrestrial vehicle” and it is easy to see why.

Cold-gas thrusters, driven by electric actuators, direct and stabilise the car in flight, adjusting within a fraction of a second. It takes Musk’s knowledge from space exploration and his SpaceX company and marries it to his electric cars. Thrusters at the rear can also propel the car to 60mph in under a second, and Musk is looking for the rocket tech to deliver a top speed of a mind-blowing 380mph, roughly half the speed of sound. That has yet to be proved, but if achieved it would be a huge leap in at least the on-road performance over rivals.

Telsa also showed off the Roadster’s onboard fan, which acts as a downforce generator, by sticking the car upside down to a loop-the-loop track before using the thrusters to jet off and land smoothly. It is not known how long the car can stay airborne, but it is certainly an optional extra you won’t find on the average hatchback.

Whether you will be able to use your Tesla Roadster to leapfrog the stationary traffic in front of you is also up for debate, as the legality and airworthiness of the car are unclear. Few jurisdictions will allow a rocket-powered car on their streets, and it would take a government with a very relaxed attitude to public safety to wave one through.

As with all Musk “stunts,” there is little in the way of detail, but it did blow up the internet — undoubtably one of his intentions. And, legal or not, the latest iteration of the Tesla Roadster is one of the wildest cars ever revealed.

Yet Musk is not the only game in town. On the eve of Musk’s announcement Alef Aeronautics released a video of one of its cars flying over a line of Teslas, including a Cybertruck and one of the original Roadsters. Trolling? Just a little. Also from California, where most of these flying car companies seem to originate, this start-up claims to have logged its 1,000th flight since its founding in 2015. It also has its own charismatic CEO, Jim Dukhovny, who looks like Nicholas Cage playing the CEO of a flying car company. 

Dukhovny wryly congratulated Musk for creating the world’s “second” flying car. “Welcome Tesla to the flying car race, we’ve been here alone for eleven years. Having competition is a good thing, especially from such a major company as Tesla,” Dukhovny said on the release. He went to welcome Tesla into the race. “It proves the market, establishes a separate flying car category, creates industry for lobbying specific regulations, brings investor focus, helps compare technology, and creates a benchmark to measure against.” Not quite fighting talk, more of the passive-aggressive “welcome to the party” variety, but rivalry is rivalry.

Alef goes about its flying car very differently from Tesla, using distributed electric propulsion (DEP) — think drone crossed with helicopter technology — which allows the car to take off vertically. Mesh bodywork surrounds the cabin, and the company claims a driving range of 220 miles and a flying range of 110 miles. It also received an airworthiness certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2023, which, Alef says, gives it genuine flying car credentials — although it is currently only a certificate for limited research purposes. 

Alef is now accepting deposits for its Model A, which is expected to begin deliveries in 2027 at a price of $300,000. In comparison, the Tesla Roadster lags by a year and is also taking reservations, though its price remains undisclosed. As with any good industrial challenge, it helps to have to rivals. Musk has the spectacle and Alef has the paperwork. However, given the checkered history of the flying car, the real rival is gravity, which has never yet lost. Until someone manages it, the rest of us will stay exactly where we have always been: stuck in traffic, staring upwards and wondering whether George Jetson ever had to pay the congestion charge.

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