The Flying Car Of The Future Just Flew For The First Time

A new startup has completed its first flight of what could be the future of transportation. Flying cars and flying taxis, known in the industry as eVTOL, or electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, have been in development for many years. Companies like Porsche, Hyundai, Boeing, and others are working on different projects but seem to be in no rush to deliver.

Flying taxis still feel like something far-fetched, and an idea for the future. The concepts of flying urban vehicles that companies have presented either look very strange or look and feel like a smaller helicopter or plane rather than a car. They are also big when compared to a car, very expensive, and are safe to fly only if the driver is a pilot.

Bellwether, a new UK startup is making serious noise in the aviation industry after successfully completing the first flight of its flying vehicle scale prototype. They say “it’s not a flying car, it’s a new type of vehicle,” and they call it Volar. Volar is an impressive project that could, if we’re lucky, lead to future flying vehicles. In design, technology, looks, size, and cost, Volar hopes to succeed where others have failed.

How Four College Students Created The Perfect Flying Craft

Volar was created by four college students from the Intelligent Mobility department of the Royal College of Art of the UK. Working meticulously, the four young students took the long and hard road to bring their vision to life. They developed designs, electronics, ran simulation tests, built clay models, CAD models, and perfected their design. By 2019 they officially founded Bellwether Industries and began teaming up with the right people in the flying car industry.

Volar can vertically take off and land and has a hidden propulsion system. The vehicle is compact, personal, can be scaled to be sold cheap. It’s meant to be city compatible, it’s fully electric, makes almost no noise, and produces net-zero emissions. The project is built on top of another project the team worked for on years, a hovercraft, or hovering car, they called Gazelle.

Bellwether is just starting out on its journey. The vehicle they presented is a scale model, so at the time it fits more the category of a drone, but they are determined to build the real thing and see it take to the skies. The team worked behind closed doors on flights tests for the past year. They set the ambitious goal of rolling out flying cars worldwide in all cities by 2030. They want to make it cheap as buying a car. “Anyone should be able to fly,” Bellwether says. Whether that dream will become reality is anyone’s guess.

Source: Bellweather, Bellweather/Facebook