Last year we told you about Terrafugia, a small Massachusetts-based company whose goal is to revolutionise personal mobility by building the world's first practical flying car.
The car in question, the Terrafugia Transition, had two major shortcomings, the first of which was its £177,000 price tag. The second major issue was the fact that you needed a socking great runway in order to get it off the ground, thus making it largely useless to your average motorist who just needs something in which to pop down to the shops.
However, undeterred by the Transition's lack of success, Terrafugia is back with its difficult second album, the TF-X.
Like the Transition, it's a flying car; and also like the Transition, it looks like something which could have been introduced on Tomorrow's World in about 1991. But credit must go to the engineers at Terrafugia for the sheer scale of their ambition, for while the Transition was fitted with a common-or-garden watercooled combustion engine, the TF-X comes with an advanced hybrid-electric powertrain.
And while the Transition was hamstrung by its need for a runway, the TF-X uses a clever vertical-takeoff system which uses motorised rotors, which work in a similar way to helicopter rotors, to lift the car off the ground.
Click on the image below to see a video showing how the TF-X works:
Images: Terrafugia
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