ORVILLE Wright had famously asked: if birds can glide for a long period of time, why can’t I? And so was born the first flying machine on Dec 17, 1903.
The first flight lasted 12 seconds. Since then, many have taken to the sky. And lasted a lot longer. It may now be the time for cars to fly. Malaysia thinks so.
And so does Singapore. If Suzanne Rowan Kelleher of Forbes is right, pilotless electric flying taxis may take to the Singapore sky by the end of the year. German air-taxi startup Volocopter is ready for lift-off there with a commercial electric vertical take-off and landing, or eVTOL, service.
Singapore’s Ministry of Transport, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore and the Economic Development Board are said to be supportive of flying taxis. Flying cabs are not the sci-fi stuff they once were.
Many are rushing to offer the service, including big names, such as Boeing and Airbus, to help solve traffic congestion and pollution in crowded cities such as Singapore.
Kuala Lumpur may not be a Bangkok yet, but it can surely do with some help from a flying cab service.
Aerodyne Group and its Japanese partner may just be responding to such an unfulfilled need. So what really is this Malaysian flying car? Not a flying Proton Saga for sure, but details are so sketchy that even a professor of international law had his banana peel moment.
Philip Alston, a John Norton Pomeroy professor of law at New York University School of Law and United Nations special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, denounced it as adding to the carbon footprint, thinking it to be run by fossil fuel. Maybe no one told the good professor that such flying machines can be all-electric, zero-emission contraptions.
The Vector, as our flying car is called, we are told is powered by a lithium-ion battery. It is built to carry two people and can fly 50m above ground for 90 minutes at 60kph, making it ideal for beating congestion and pollution. Being based on drone technology, the flying cab is friendlier to the environment than a conventional taxi is.
But affordability may be an issue. Neither Aerodyne nor Volocopter has provided any indicative cost. If Terrafugia’s US$30,000 (RM126,000) for a flying car is to serve as a basis, a ride in the Vector isn’t going to be the fare you will pay a Grab car driver for an 8km-ride.
Be prepared to cough out many multiples more of RM35 for a similar distance. And we have not even said anything about who is footing the bill for the vertiports, or landing pads.
And then there are regulatory matters that need handling. We took some time to let drones into our lives. Would we take as long? Jumping from taking pictures to ferrying people may turn out to be quite a leap. Because we are dealing with a not-quite-taxi and not-quite-plane world.
For Aerodyne Group and other flying cab companies, being neither here nor there but in between may be an uncomfortable position now. But if they hang in there, it may just turn out to be a good business proposition in this very disruptive world.