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Toyota Investigating Hovercars

Posted by Soulskill on from the would-go-great-on-michigan's-pockmarked-roads dept.

cartechboy writes: Remember back in the day when we all thought we'd be driving flying cars in the future? Well that clearly didn't happen, though it still might in the future. But somewhere inside Toyota there's a team of engineers who think hover cars might be a thing, and apparently there's a project underway at one of Toyota's "most advanced" research and development areas. We aren't talking Jetson's flying car, more like a car that merely hovers "a little bit away" from the road. Probably a few inches, with the aim to reduce road friction. With no wings or ridiculous speed, this is probably no simple process. No one really knows how long Toyota has been working on the idea, or how far along it is. Basically, don't expect flying Priuses any time soon...

4 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. aka by GoddersUK · · Score: 5, Interesting
    small hovercraft.

    this is probably no simple process

    Surely the underlying technology required is essentially what's already been developed for hovercraft, which already come in car sized variants. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it would be easy to stick a car body on them, develop intuitive controls and stick them on public roads; I'm just not sure the technology is as novel and underdeveloped as the summary makes out.

    1. Re:aka by CastrTroy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm not sure why a person would want a hovercraft for general use. It's way more efficient to just have car that rolls on wheels. Lifting the entire car off the ground with a cushion of air is terribly inefficient. Not that there aren't any uses at all, but as a general purpose vehicle on public roadways, it seems like a terrible idea.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    2. Re: aka by Viol8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Given 95% of resistance at motorway speeds is air resistance, not rolling resistance I'm not entirely sure how having a massive fan to create the lift and another to propel the car is going to improve fuel efficiency given how inefficient propellers are to start with.

  2. Re:I get enough flying priuses already. by Viol8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Try an experiment: go the speed limit in the center lane of the highway and see how many furious drivers pound their horns and flash their headlights"

    Yeah , I wonder why that could be. Perhaps because some arrogant ass is blocking the lane when he's supposed to move over if the nearside lane is clear. If you want to play traffic cop go sign up and do the 2 years training, otherwise get out the fecking way.