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Your future Toyota could hover above the road

Japanese car manufacturer admits looking into making vehicles that hover just above the ground.

Toyota has said it has been looking into making flying cars more than just the reserve of science-fiction and movies. This is according to managing officer of the Toyota’s technical administration group, Hiroyoshi Yoshiki, who was talking at Bloomberg’s Next Big Thing conference in California.

Yoshiki reportedly declined to elaborate on the details such as production viability, what would power the vehicle and just how much research it has done so far, but did say work is taking place at its “most advanced” research and development areas.

There’s still a long way to go before we commute to work like The Jetsons. Toyota admitted its flying car would float just above the road, much like how a hovercraft works. The reason for doing so is to reduce friction from rolling resistance, which makes cars less efficient and slower.

We’re not sure at what separates a hovercraft from a hover car. Not that it matters, when we just want humanity to take a step towards the dream that is a flying car.

Toyota has also been working on using hydrogen as a fuel source. It plans to produce 10,000 hydrogen fuel cell cars (FCVs for short) for 2015, priced somewhere between US$50,000 (£29,700) and US$100,000 (£59,400).

The impatient among us can rest easy knowing flying cars are actually closer than we think. Aeromobil, for instance, has been working on its interpretation known as the 3.0. Meanwhile the Terrafugia TF-X is expected to go on sale in 2021.

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