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Plug-in hybrid flying car under development

Terrafugia-TF-X

We talk a bunch about how carmakers are trying doing their best to include plug-in technologies and green technologies into their models, and today we’ll go one further and talk about a company developing a plug-in hybrid flying car, that’s right, a flying car.

This company is a Massachusetts-based entrepreneur attempting to bring the flying car to the masses, and it has just released details of their four-seat, plug-in hybrid, Terrafugia TF-X.

The rather interesting design idea is still under heavy development and it is not planned to reach any sort of production stage till at least the first half of the next decade. However Terrafugia says that their TF-X will be able to take off, fly and land almost completely autonomously, needing very little input from the driver, or the pilot, or the driver/pilot.

They plan on using two 447kW electric motor pods to launch the Terrafugia vertically, before then adding the thrust of a 224kW engine in order to get the road jet up to speed in the air. The engine is also capable of recharging the batteries while moving.

The flying car is targeting a top speed of 322km/h and is expected to have a flying range of 805 kilometers.

Learning to fly the TF-X should only take a few hours because the vehicle will feature ‘state of the art intelligent systems and fly-by-wire-controls’ – according to the company at least.

The idea of the TF-X is to bring the concept of personal aviation to new levels of safety, simplicity as well as obviously convenience.

The company considers that this is the right time to start thinking about this sort of development – which has been a dream of humans ever since there were cars on the roads – and it is quite commendable to see them dedicating resources into making this dream a possible reality.

Interestingly enough, Terrafugia is actually nearing production on one of its first flying car creations, a two-seat folding-wing vehicle called Transition, which has been in development since 2006.

 

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