Suzuki and SkyDrive To Jointly Start Producing 'Flying Cars' in 2024

Suzuki said Tuesday it has agreed to jointly start producing "flying cars" with Japanese start-up SkyDrive around the spring of 2024 as it aims to take the lead in the growing industry. From a report: Flying cars are a type of aircraft with the ability to vertically take off and land using multiple rotors. The vehicles are typically meant for carrying a small number of people, with some models also equipped for use on land. SkyDrive will set up a fully-owned production subsidiary that will assemble vehicles utilizing the Suzuki group's plant in Shizuoka Prefecture.

The announcement comes a day after SkyDrive, a leading flying car start-up in Japan, unveiled at the Paris Airshow a plan to change the design of its vehicle under development so it can carry three people instead of two. The new design, which has an overall length of about 13 meters and a height of 3 meters, will extend the maximum flight range to about 15 kilometers from the current 10 km. SkyDrive and Suzuki announced a tie-up in the area of flying vehicles in March 2022, but the details of the collaboration have been under discussion.

Flying car?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope we can come up with a better name for these types of vehicles. "Flying car" isn't cutting it for me.

Re:"Flying car" need better name

[Tablizer]

"Skycycle" if it's for a single person, but "flying car" or "sky car" makes sense if it's for 2 to 4. More than 4, I'd call it a "sky shuttle".

"Personal Crashing Device"?

Re:

[jriding]

This is a real flying car.
https://www.klein-vision.com/ [klein-vision.com]
as seen on Grand Tour.

Re: "Flying car" need better name

[PEBKAC69]

A compromise vehicle that performs terribly by measurements of car or airplane?

Re:

[Tablizer]

It's like Windows 8: the worst of desktop shoehorned into the worst of mobile.

Re:

[zephvark]

Flying cars are a type of aircraft with the ability to vertically take off and land using multiple rotors.

That is, in fact, what we call "helicopters". Helicopters!

Flying cars are a type of aircraft that work equally badly in the air or on the highway.

Flying car?

[Excelcia]

s/car/pig/

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[Tablizer]

"Shattle", LOL. I can imagine somebody mistaking it for a portable potty like what construction sites and conventions use, only to have it take off in the middle of your "business". At least you'll be ready to have the crap scared out of you.

That is fake news, by the way.

Re:

[danomac]

Humans barely travel in two dimensions, I dunno about adding a third dimension....

Re:

[PJ6]

LOL that looks like what would happen if Apple commissioned ChatGPT to make a Doctor Who episode.

Range Anxiety - 15 kilometers?

[turp182]

What's the use case here? Intra-city building hopping?

15 kilometers isn't very far, and who would want to push near the edge with a flying vehicle?

There's a funny joke at the end of the article:
"Flying cars are one of the fastest growing segments in mobility, "

Re:

[taustin]

Just another attempt at an air taxi, updated with current technology, but still nothing more than and expensive toy for rich people. No indication of price, but it'll be six figures, and the first digit won't likely be a one.

will need an certified pilot and repair program

[Joe_Dragon]

will need an certified pilot and repair program so running costs will be high as well.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:will need an certified pilot and repair program

[cstacy]

The FAA is not going to just say, "Oh, cool, let the public ride the new kind of air taxi; have fun!"

Let's suppose first that it's a piloted aircraft. This thing will have to be certificated in a fantastic process that will take years years to accomplish. Even though it's just a new helicopter. And piloting is different enough that they will have to invent new regulatons (and get them passed by Congress) for the certification of the pilots, as well as the operational rules. And the taxi service company itself will be a Part 135 certified operation. This is all pretty expensive and will take a long time.

Now if you imagine that these will be drones, autonomous or not, that's an entirely new thing. The certification just to fly the thing at all (never mind with passengers) will be an unbelievable hurdle.

Very different from an Experimental vehicle operating without people aboard, under super restricted conditions at some test airport out in the boonies.

The FAA is actively working on these issues, trying to create a framework in which all the aspects of aircraft, pilots, airspace procedures, and taxi service, can be regulated. This will happen, but not very soon.

These companies are trying to suggest that next year you will be able to pay $10,000 for a 10 minute quick hop from the inner 'burb to office downtown. (Whether the idea is with a pilot or not.) That's just not realistic.

Come back in about 10 years and we'll see how far the FAA and industry has gotten with this "flying car (taxi)" nonsense.

Re:

[EvilSS]

And it's a single-seat vehicle, so revenue will be non-existant. No room for paying passengers!

Re:

[real_nickname]

There's a funny joke at the end of the article: "Flying cars are one of the fastest growing segments in mobility, "

Probably they went from 1 company to 3, 200% growth!

Re:

[Tablizer]

"And the sky's the limit!" We can be marketing partners and/or politicians.

Re:

[boskone]

Sure, or places with lots of small islands. In the Seattle area, there are big sections of the metro seperated by a 2 mile wide lake or inlet. being able to have a robo air taxi hop back and forth (running like an elevator) could move a lot of people at rush hour from an inconvenient place to take transit to a very convenient place in a couple of minutes.

Re:

[Osgeld]

the use case here is Suzuki gets to suck a lot of fools money out of a dumb idea

Re:

[jellomizer]

For the fancy exec to jump from office building to building, so they can gawk at all the pleebs who have to take ground transportation, then scold them for being late, as they can get there in time, so why can't they.

Re:

[Pascoea]

I can drive 5 minutes to catch a train to work, which takes ~20 min to get from my station to the one closest to my office. Then to get to my office I can either A) Hop on the bus, transfer to two other busses, then walk for a half mile, adding another hour+ to my commute. or B) Get an uber/lyft/taxi to drive me across the river, which takes about 30 minutes because of the BS downtown traffic. Adding a "C) have an air-taxi fly my ass to the office in less than 2 minutes." seems like it would make mass tr

"this will change how we build cities"

[Thud457]

Buildings won't need elevators any more, just landing pads every other floor!1

Re:

[cstacy]

Buildings won't need elevators any more, just landing pads every other floor !

JANE! Stop this crazy thing!!

Rut-roh!

Re:

[drinkypoo]

It's the same use case as helicopter taxis, except they will bring them to the 1% so they don't have to mix with the plebes, because multicopters are a lot simpler and more reliable than a swashplate helicopter and will therefore be a lot cheaper to operate.

Fastest growing segment might be right, although it is very irrelevant at the current numbers.

I ain't buying one until you put

[Tablizer]

...FlyGPT in it! It's gotta be super buzzworddy or I won't get laid.

This is something we ought to stop

[rsilvergun]

these are expensive and dangerous. They're not "flying cars" they're VTOL aircraft. There's a lot wrong here.

If they're expensive (probably) they'll be toys for the rich, and their discourage the wealthy from allowing us peons to solve the traffic problems in our city since they'll literally be flying over them.

If they're (semi) affordable... you're going to have large numbers of these being poorly maintained.

I knew a guy who used to drive from city to city on what could only be called tires on close inspection. It's a significant miracle that they never blew out on the highway. But his mom was in City A and he was in City B and he was driving back and forth to care for her and work, so he was gonna do it no matter what.

Now imagine that same guy is flying over your city with a rotor barely attached and a solid justification of why? And I don't trust inspections. Lots of ways around those and lots of corners to be cut.

Re:

[nightflameauto]

These will never target commoners. The dream is for the ultra-rich to own these and never have to come down out of their sky-castles to interact with the plebes that live on the ground. Gets them above the smog line in some cases, and prevents them from dirtying their consciousness with the fact that their lifestyle may very well be killing the rest of us slowly. Much easier to ignore the homeless and the commoners if you never, ever have to interact with them.

It's a problem for us commoners either way

[rsilvergun]

if they are just for the ultra rich it means the rich have zero reason to fund the roads we drive, and they'll just pocket that money for themselves.

It's just like when they slashed all the college tuition subsidies in the early 2000s. Public Uni used to get hundreds of millions in state & federal subsidies. The rich allowed this because they wanted trained staff. Once the H1-B program got going they didn't need Americans anymore, so they lobbied to cut those subsidies and pocketed the money via tax

Re:

[End rsilverguns life]

Suicide is self-expression. It would save me considerable effort if you jump off your balcony, Damien.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

It's a toy. Not road legal, not able to go more than a couple of metres off the ground, max range 15km.

Like a quad bike. You take it to where you want to play on a trailer. Probably about as safe too.

SkyDrive?

[davidwr]

I want One when it goes Live but only if it's powered by Microsoft.

At least then when it crashes there will be a backup.

Where are they then?

[greytree]

Every month there's a new "New flying car" story.

So where are they? They can't all have crashed already ... can they?

Re:

[cstacy]

The Millennium called and wants its Captain back....Spencahh".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

How big?

[Tea-Bone of Brooklyn]

"The new design, which has an overall length of about 13 meters and a height of 3 meters" Isn't that almost as big as a Semi?

They named it what?

[CEC-P]

Hey, remember when Microsoft first named OneDrive "SkyDrive" and "Sky" from England made them change it despite it not remotely competing in their sector. So we're already off to the races with this one on the rushing ahead and not doing things the proper business way Silicon Valley style business then.

Check Relays!

[cstacy]

Hey, remember when Microsoft first named OneDrive "SkyDrive" and "Sky" from England made them change it despite it not remotely competing in their sector.

Stand by for action! Anything can happen in the next half decade!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Anyway, I'm not going to ride one of these flying cars unless the boarding process involves a Bat-slide from the executive suite.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Can you park it in your garage?

[Tony Isaac]

Nope.

Can it drive on roads?

Nope.

Is it street legal?

Nope.

More of a small helicopter or passenger drone, than a "flying car."

Cars in the sky

[imunfair]

"Hey guys, we're on the cusp of self-driving cars making transit safe and painless, any ideas on how we can increase fatalities again?"

"Well, we could put the cars in the sky."

Where's my jet pack, damn it!?

[iAmWaySmarterThanYou]

And my cold fusion!