A number of companies at the moment are currently racing toward getting their flying car networks off the ground within a few years and if Toyota has its way, it will see flying cars at the Olympics in 2020.
At the moment there is currently a crowdfunding effort underway for the Skydrive car that is going to be a drone-like vehicle that will be able to fly at about 62 pmh and be regarded as one of the world's smallest flying vehicles.
Toyota just recently gave Cartivator group, the ones behind the crowdfunding effort for the Sykdrive, roughly 40 million yen for the project. They are financially backing the group to try and bring the flying car dream to full realization within just a few years. And if they can get ready by the Olympics, it certainly will be quite an impressive platform to debut the commercial vehicle to the world.
The Skydrive design is currently being developed by about 30 volunteers and they want to have it up and running by next year and hopefully see it commercialized in time to use it during the 2020 Olympics to light the games torch.
They have already surpassed their funding goal thanks to the many people online who've already expressed enthusiastic support for the project. On their funding page, they declare that they are seeking to create the world's smallest flying vehicle that is able to take off and fly from any public road and can be interfaced with any smartphone in order to be flown.
Aside from their investment into this project, Toyota has also pledged to invest roughly $9 billion toward new technology in this area. They believe that in order for things to progress, they need to fuel the effort by financing it, rather than waiting until later to get on board.
Will they be able to pull it off by 2020? They certainly have a fair amount of funds to give it a decent effort at trying to accomplish the goal, so we will have to wait and see what happens. Whether it's them or someone else, it probably won't be very long before we start to see flying vehicles making their way to the market.
Pics:
Techspot/Cartivator
zenmono/Cartivator
Sources:
http://www.techspot.com/news/69323-toyota-backs-flying-car-used-2020-tokyo-olympics.html
http://www.techspot.com/news/69323-toyota-backs-flying-car-used-2020-tokyo-olympics.html
https://zenmono.jp/projects/76?locale=en
https://www.engadget.com/2017/05/15/toyota-cartivator-skydrive-flying-car/
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