Toyota has Invested in flying car company

Toyota Motor Corp. is working on a "flying car."

A startup backed by the Japanese automaker has developed a test model that engineers hope will eventually develop into a tiny car with a driver who'll be able to light the Olympic torch in the 2020 Tokyo games. For now, however, the project is a concoction of aluminum framing and eight propellers that barely gets off the ground and crashes after several seconds.

Toyota has invested 42.5 million yen ($386,000) in startup Cartivator Resource Management to work on "Sky Drive ." At a test flight Saturday in the city where the automaker is based, the gadgetry, about the size of a car and loaded with batteries and sensors, blew up a lot of sand and made a lot of noise.

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cartivator.com...


How many flying cars in development are we up to?


This is a pittance as an investment though. The equivalent of angel funding in Silicon Valley. The wildly speculative phase that only the rich can do just yet because the SEC hasn't rolled out the regs for normal folks to do so yet despite the JOBS Act of 2012…five years ago. Starting to stray there, sorry.

a reply to: anzha

This is a pittance as an investment though. The equivalent of angel funding in Silicon Valley. The wildly speculative phase that only the rich can do just yet because the SEC hasn't rolled out the regs for normal folks to do so yet despite the JOBS Act of 2012…five years ago. Starting to stray there, sorry.

Give it time bud. Everything has to start small. There are enough idiots on the road right now, nevermind the sky.

It's bad enough trying to watch for cars on the roads without having to watch the sky for them. one little mechanical problem or wind change and they can come tumbling down.

Oh good lord that's ugly!

It's like a fugly kayak with fan blades! Have to mention there are enough bad drivers of conventional cars out there without plummeting "incoming" as well to watch out for. Isn't this going to be problematic with the FAA? (poking at picture in link) um...Toyota is inventing a supremely absurd version of an Ultra-Lite?

Since the image is hilarious, have to ask, so what's the weight limit on that puppy? By the time I would get in, add weight for "typical" woman's purse, transfer crap from my car console, add kid and diaper bag I'm pretty sure that vehicle, and I'm using the term loosely, isn't getting off the ground!!!

I'm all for futuristic stuff but my mind is boggled down with practical issues.
People don't even stop for stop signs now, or use their turn signals, to expect them to actually learn flight rules, weather patterns, or answer a air traffic controller is putting a LOT of faith in the general public.
Don't you think?

Flyn cars are already obsolete before they are even built. Jet packs or GTFO.

a reply to: anzha

Thank you for the thread and video, but after watching it, I'll hang on to my Tacoma for a few more years if you don't mind.

a reply to: anzha

Would love to see it, but don't large corporations buy these patents and companies to bury them?

They've already made flying cars though... They never sold them of course because if people can't drive on the ground they sure as hell shouldn't be able to fly! (Of course the older flying cars were incredibly clunky and not as advanced as now)

FLYING CARS OF THE 50's

Need make them failsafe so idiots dont make them fall onto things or crash into each other..Humans barely know how to drive in car parks as it is..