A group of Japanese engineers is busy developing a flying car that will be used to light the Olympic cauldron to open the Tokyo Olympics in 2020 and…
…TOYOTA HAS just invested around $400,000 (over the next three years) to help a group of Japanese engineers build a full-size flying car that will be used to light the Olympic cauldron at the opening of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
The company established to build the car is called Cartivator and is a start-up of 30 engineers, including a number of young Toyota engineers. The company was formed in 2014 with the aim of building a flying car, called SkyDrive, that the company is hoping to have on-sale in 2025.
The Cartivator team tested their prototype flying car over the weekend and managed to get it to lift off the ground and hover for a few seconds. The company is hoping it will be able to complete lift-off and test flights by the end of 2018 (unmanned to start with, for obvious reasons). It’s expected the finished car will fly at around 10 metres off the ground, which will be enough to clear pedestrians but low enough to scare the pants off you if one flies by…
Beyond Toyota’s investment, the company is being crowdfunded and anyone can contribute by clicking HERE.
Cartivator isn’t the only company attempting to build a manned flying car capable for vertical lift-off, with both Uber and Airbus creating teams to work on their own flying car/taxi projects.
