Freak out over this video of the coolest flying car yet
Well, that's pretty amazing.
Lilium Aviation dropped a video showing the successful test flight of its all-electric flying car--aka vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) prototype, per The Verge--and it's something to behold.
The vehicle gets its vertical lift thanks to the 36 electric jets mounted on the vehicle's wings on a dozen movable flaps pointed downward, giving it enough force to lift straight up like a helicopter.
Once the vehicle is in the air, those flaps can be pivoted to turn that thrust horizontally, enabling, well, flying.
When done, the vehicle can then go back to vertical thrust and diminish the thrust for a smooth (we assume) landing straight down.
It's all pretty badass, to be honest.
According to a Lilium press release, the electric vehicle can carry two passengers with a range of around 300 kilometers (~186 miles) and is capable of hitting a max cruising speed of 300 km/h (~186 mph).
Using those stats, the vehicle would be capable of getting you from New York City to the northern reaches of Baltimore in an hour. Not bad at all.
AeroMobile spreads its wings, too
And it's not the only flying vehicle that announced some impressive news Thursday. AeroMobil, whose flying car prototype we took a look at just last week, unveiled specs of their vehicle as well as the model itself at the Top Marques Monaco supercar show.
The company announced plans to put the vehicle into production this year with the first models hitting streets (er, skies?) by 2020. But it will be quite a trick to get your hands on one: according to a release from the company, the first run will be limited to just 500 vehicles and cost between €1.2 million and €1.5 million ($1.3 million and $1.6 million).
According to the company, the car can switch from driving mode to flying mode in about 3 minutes, can reach speeds of 160 k/h (~99 mph) on the ground and, depending on the mode, from 112 to 360 km/h (~69 to ~224 mph) in the air. It also has a range of about 750 kilometers (466 miles) at 75 percent energy usage.
It's all very fun news, but actually getting these things into the sky soon presents another set of challenges.
It's one thing to have a successful test flight but it's another to get this prototype into production and then past what would surely be the most stringent safety tests ever for a consumer vehicle plus all of the FAA safety regulations and the need for air traffic coordination because you can't just have these things flying all about willy nilly.
Still, flying cars! WHAT!?
Marcus Gilmer is Mashable's Assistant Real-Times News Editor on the West Coast, reporting on breaking news from his location in San Francisco. An Alabama native, Marcus earned his BA from Birmingham-Southern College and his MFA in Communications from the University of New Orleans. Marcus has previously worked for Chicagoist, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
