Courtesy : Dailystar

Flying cars could be in the skies within four years as Japan launches air taxi flights

Flying cars could be taking to the skies sooner than we think, as a Japanese company has announced plans to roll out a flying commercial shuttle within four years.

The local government in Osaka has signed an agreement with a Tokyo-based flying car company called SkyDrive.

The startup aims to launch a flying car operation in the city in 2025 and unveil it at the Japan World Expo, where it will be used as transport for guests.

A takeoff and landing site will be built around five kilometres away from the expo venue, with a two-seater flying car acting as a shuttle.

A German flying taxi company, Volocopter, also plans to fly at the event. It has put forward proposals to shuttle people to and from the airport, an 18 mile journey in 21 minutes.

SkyDrive estimates that there are around 400 different flying car development projects in the works right now.

Many of them are eVTOLS, or electric vertical take off and landing vehicles, which means they don’t produce any emissions and don’t require big runways to ferry people in and out of cities.

Just last month, both Airbus and NASA unveiled their new flying taxis, which are quiet and small enough to fly through city streets and can even be piloted remotely.

Last week, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said he was ‘dying’ to build a ‘supersonic’ eVTOL, but he is worried that his brain might “explode” due to his huge existing workload.