The Jetson One is closest we’ll get to a flying car for now

It’s official – you can now buy your own electric flying vehicle. If you happen to have a cool US$92,000 (S$124,000) lying around, and the patience to wait till 2023, since this year’s production units have already been snatched up. 

And though that price tag may seem hefty, the aptly named Jetson One (remember the Jetsons and their flying cars?) is offering an experience that’s nigh impossible to replicate. Eight electric motors power the vehicle – which isn’t so much UFO-like flying car a la the Jetsons and more speeder from Star Wars, plus rotors – propelling its ultra-lightweight aluminum and carbon-kevlar composite body and a single passenger (there’s a weight limit of 95kg) up to an electrifying 102 kph. 

(Related: Flying Cars. At Last.)

It’s also very much a pleasure craft. Not just because it’s got a maximum flight time of 20 minutes – sorry, no commutes or road trips just yet – but because, according to the founders, it requires little-to-no training to get started. Hence their vision of making “everyone a pilot”.

This means they’ve made the trouble to make the experience as safe and pain-free as possible. For one, it’s capable of vertical takeoff and landing, simplifying the trickiest bit about flying. It’s also built with extra redundancies in its flight computer and propulsion, being able to function even with the loss of one motor. And if that doesn’t work, the spaceframe takes after the safety cells of a racecar, with a rapid-deployment parachute to boot.

(Related: Here’s what it costs to own a flying car)

Pretty remarkable stuff for a company founded just five years ago by Peter Ternstrom and Tomasz Platz. The proof-of-concept prototype was released a year later and the rest, as they say, is history, since they’ve now sold more than a hundred units. The company is also seeking funding to further scale the production of the Jetson One, having recruited the likes of Swedish Silicon Valley veteran Richard Streiber into their ranks.

(Related: Object of desire: 2021 DeLorean Concept)

While we’re not exactly sure if it’s street legal in Singapore – according to the founders, it requires no pilot’s license to fly in the US thanks to its relatively light weight and slow speed – it is pretty much the first commercially available flying vehicle. Which means that guidelines are going to be drawn up pretty soon.

For more on visit their website.

Photos provided by Jestson One.