In the movies, especially sci-fi movies, we’re always greeted with vehicles that can fly or hover. It’s an interesting concept and we have to wonder just when can we look forward to such inventions? Well the good news is that Toyota is working on it. The Japanese car manufacturer was recently announced that they will be investigating the possibility of vehicles that will be able to hover over the road.
Speaking at Bloomberg’s Next Big Thing Summit in San Francisco, Toyota’s Hiroyoshi Yoshiki mentioned that the company was looking at the idea of flying cars, although he noted that these cars would not be flying so much as it would be hovering. Instead of cars zipping over the skies, these cars would hover above the roads to help reduce friction, similar to how a hovercraft works.
Unfortunately Yoshiki did not mention when Toyota had begun its research or how far along they are in to their research. he also declined to mention if such a vehicle would ever make it into the market, but we guess it’s good that at least some companies are exploring the idea, even if it is just for the sake of technological advances.
In terms of advancements in vehicular technology, we seem to be pretty far away from flying cars and whatnot, but companies like Nissan, Google, and Volvo are currently exploring the idea of vehicles that can drive themselves without any input from humans. That in itself is facing some challenges from lawmakers who might be concerned over its safety, so we can only imagine the obstacles that manufacturers would face over cars that could fly/hover.
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