Cassandra reports that flying cars could reach consumers as soon as 2019.
Of course flying cars have been just a few years away since 1917, when both Ford and Curtiss Aircraft announced they had flying car prototypes.
More recently, in 1955 The Smithsonian Magazine predicted atomic powered flying cars would by common by the year 2000.
But despite the long history of flying car failure, it seems that the concept may finally be gaining altitude.
The flying car company Terrafugia (tagline: "We're Driven to Fly) was recently acquired by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, the Chinese owner of automaker Volvo.
Founded by group of MIT grads, Terrafugia already has a working flying car prototype and are taking deposits ($10,000) for those interested in being the first in their neighborhood to own one.
They're also developing a really cool looking vertical take off and landing (VTOL) flying car (pictured below), which they hope to have on the market in 4-5 years.
Having Geely's financial and technical resources behind them certainly improves Terrafugia's chances of finally delivering on the promise of the flying car.
But even if they don't, according to Tech Crunch's Are flying cars the future of transportation or an inflated expectation? there are at least 15 flying car startups. The article also reports a number of large firms are also working on flying cars.
Most experts think flying taxi services using VTOL aircraft will likely have the biggest impact. Uber and others are working on this type of service.
So it seems likely that in some form, flying cars will finally take off.
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