Toyota is a well-known name in the automotive industry worldwide and has a reputation for producing vehicles for almost all segments of the automotive industry. Toyota has been investing heavily in robotics, artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles with an aim to revolutionize the automobile industry. Pursuing with its aim to revolutionize the automotive industry, the Japanese car maker has now invested in a startup to produce their first-ever flying car and Toyota plans to complete this project by 2020. Toyota aspires to use its flying car to light the Olympic Torch in 2020, which will be held in Tokyo, Japan.
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Test Flight of Toyota’s Flying Car
Toyota’s venture with the startup “Cartivator Resource Management” allows Toyota’s team of engineers to collaborate efficiently with Cartivator Resource Management’s team of experts. The underdevelopment prototype will serve as a model which will be perfected over the coming years until a fully developed production model is ready.
Toyota has invested a total of $386,000 in their flying car project, which is referred as the first Sky Drive Project of Toyota. The project currently is in its initial phase, but Toyota tested the flight of its underdevelopment flying car recently with their startup partners. The results of the test flight were not very encouraging as the under-trial gadgetry could only manage to get off the ground, but crashed instantly after few seconds.
The gadgetry tested for the flight was a structure consisting of aluminum framing and eight propellers to lift it off the ground. It could only manage to fly up to the eye level and then fell on the ground. Multiple attempts were made to make it fly higher, but eventually, the testing had to be stopped after the propellers of the gadgetry were severely damaged.
New Design Strategy for the First-ever Flying Car by Toyota
After an unsuccessful test flight of Toyota’s first flying car, the startup Cartivator has now begun to work on a better design and improved engineering technology with Toyota investing more money in this project.
While commenting on the progress of this one of a kind project, the project lead Tsubasa Nakamura suggested that the aim of their team was to deliver a smooth transition from driving to flight. According to him, the Toyota’s flying car will be able to make its first manned flight by 2019, something that will happen in the automotive industry for the first time.
Future of Flying Cars
Though Toyota seems to be well on course to take a lead in developing the world’s first-ever production ready flying car, there are some other automotive brands that have set their eyes on launching their own flying cars. Uber Technologies, Inc. is one of the companies that plans to launch their first flying taxi by 2020 in Dubai and Dallas-Fort Worth. Other companies like the Air Bus Group is also working on a flying car under its Urban Air Mobility Division.
Manufacturing a flying car might be an achievable task for top car brands who are heavily investing in this project, but to launch a flying car as an alternative mode of transportation to the conventional road cars is a subject with serious safety concerns. It is still to be seen whether the transport authorities will allow flying vehicles to board passengers and legalize it as a commute option. Nonetheless, production of flying cars has certainly opened new horizons for the traditional automotive industry and the future of flying cars looks promising with multiple car brands now focusing on investing in their own flying cars.
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