A Slovakia-based company on Thursday unveiled the commercial design for a flying car priced at more than US$1 million, saying it was ready for preorders with first deliveries expected by 2020.
AeroMobil s.r.o. said its teardrop-shaped AeroMobil Flying Car, displayed at the Top Marques Monaco, could switch to flight mode in less than three minutes.
The wings fold away for driving on roads and swing out for flying.
Photo: Reuters
The company, one of several developing such flying vehicles, aims to make up to 500 units of its first commercially available edition, priced at 1.2 million to 1.5 million euros (US$1.29 million to US$1.61 million).
To fly, the car would need an airfield or another approved place to take off, while owners would require driving and pilot licences, AeroMobil chief communications officer Stefan Vadocz said.
AeroMobil said deliveries to customers of the flying car, which Vadocz said would comply with air and road regulations, was expected to start by 2020.
Before so-called flying cars become mainstream, they must overcome a host of flight safety issues to allay public fears.
Governments are already studying how to regulate drones and driverless cars, while the auto and aviation industries are working on advances in software and city planning to ensure the vehicles are restricted to travel within safe corridors.
Meanwhile, a Bavarian start-up is developing a five-seat “flying taxi” after successful test flights over Germany of a smaller version of the electric jet, the company said on Thursday.
Munich-based Lilium, backed by investors who include Skype cofounder Niklas Zennstrom, said the planned five-seater jet, which would be capable of vertical take-off and landing, could be used for urban air taxi and ride-sharing services.
In flight tests, a two-seat prototype executed manoeuvres that included a mid-air transition from hover mode — like a drone — to wing-borne flight — like a conventional aircraft, Lilium said.
Potential competitors to Lilium Jet include much bigger players such as Airbus SE, the maker of commercial airliners and helicopters that aims to test a prototype self-piloted, single-seat “flying car” later this year.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained