Flying car company terrafugia is bought by china's geely

1. 3/22/2018 Flying-Car Company Terrafugia is Bought by China's Geely - IEEE Spectrum
https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/aerospace/aviation/flyingcar-company-terrafugia-is-bought-by-chinas-geely 1/3
14 Nov 2017 | 18:30 GMT
Flying-Car Company Terrafugia is Bought by China's Geely
With real money behind its project, maybe Terrafugia will finally hit its
latest deadline, in 2019. But it'll probably lose money anyway
By Philip E. Ross (/author/ross-philip-e)
Photo: Terrafugia
“We wanted flying cars, instead we
got 140 characters," wrote tech
billionaire Peter Thiel,
Well,
Twitter is now going to allow
in a
tweet, and soon—we are told—we will
finally get a flying car.
in 2011.
(http://www.businessinsider.com/fo
unders-fund-the-future-2011-7)
280 characters
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/n
ews/the-
switch/wp/2017/11/07/twitter-is-
officially-doubling-the-character-
limit-to-280/?
utm_term=.a4b393b75de9)
Terrafugia, which in 2006 became one of the very first of a new crop of flying-car companies, says it will
have one in 2019. And though that is only the latest in a long string of deadlines the company has
set, perhaps—Perhaps!—this will be the first one that it honors. Reason: The company has just been
acquired for an undisclosed sum by Geely, the Chinese automotive company that owns Volvo. The R&D
funds should flow profusely.
A lot of companies from around the world are chasing the same dream—among them Toyota, Google’s
Larry Page, Germany’s eVolo, and China’s EHang. Vahana, a subsidiary of Airbus, was supposed to test-
fly a prototype this year, as
, but here we are in November with no air taxi. I am not shocked, that
this is the case; in this business, deadlines are aspirational.
I wrote back in January (/aerospace/aviation/autonomous-air-taxis-will-
take-off-in-2017-but-wont-go-far)
What’s more, the Vahana craft was supposed to be autonomous. That makes sense, even if it’s devilishly
hard to manage. There’s just no other way to make money off a battery-powered plane that can ferry a
mere one or two passengers at a time.
Terrafugia has dreams of autonomy as well, in the shape of its TF-X model, but the company has put its
deadline a good seven or eight years further out. Not including a fudge factor.

2. 3/22/2018 Flying-Car Company Terrafugia is Bought by China's Geely - IEEE Spectrum
https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/aerospace/aviation/flyingcar-company-terrafugia-is-bought-by-chinas-geely 2/3
Okay, so it may seem we’re beating up on a futuristic company that dares to dream big. But
and Terrafugia go back a long way, like an old married couple. We’ve been grousing about why
we consider Terrafugia’s unreasonable ever since
back in 2007.
IEEE
Spectrum
ambitions we first labeled the company a “loser,”
(/aerospace/aviation/loser-grounded)
Photo: Terrafugia
The reasons for our skepticism
haven’t changed. Making a car into a
plane is really just a way of making a
plane that can kinda, sorta move
down a road without knocking off the
heads of parking meters. Such
“roadable” planes have absolutely no
appeal as a car. Indeed, the same can
be said of those crazy cars that were
supposed to float like boats or even
submerge like submarines. No,
seriously! Take a look at the
that sent James Bond diving
deep, in “The Spy Who Loved Me”
(1977).
Lotus
Esprit
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_
Nellie)
One thing has changed, though. Today there’s a lot of serious money behind the flying-car dreams, and
the question is why.
It could be sheer personal enthusiasm. For instance, Billionaire Larry Page is putting his own money into
his secretive
. Maybe there just wasn’t a good enough business
case for Google to back it with corporate funds.
flying-car project (http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2017/04/24/kitty-hawk-flying-
car-jetski-google-larry-page.cnnmoney/index.html)
Then there’s the tech-demo argument. Doing hard things on a small scale may be a good way to master
robotics, sensor fusion, and other skills that will come in handy in self-driving cars and super-automated
jetliners. This argument may lie behind Geely’s acquisition policy, which has also swept up companies
with expertise in other aspects of self-driving cars and suchlike. Here’s a
the Chinese company has made lately, from .
checklist of the tech moves
(http://www.autonews.com/article/20171112/INDUSTRY_REDESIGNED/171119923/why-geely-could-
be-a-contender) Automotive News
Finally there’s the cool factor. Elon Musk—who, interestingly, is trying to give cars wings—has always
used outlandish projects to fire up the imagination. Witness the
, the
,
—and Tesla itself. Such quests for
miracles attract top engineering talent.
not
Hyperloop (/cars-that-
think/transportation/alternative-transportation/active-levitation-championed-by-rloop-in-this-
weekends-hyperloop-competition) Boring Company (/tech-talk/transportation/alternative-
transportation/musk-claims-verbal-approval-for-a-hyperloop-tunnel-from-new-york-to-dc) SpaceX
(/aerospace/space-flight/commercial-spaceflight-hits-a-milestone)

3. 3/22/2018 Flying-Car Company Terrafugia is Bought by China's Geely - IEEE Spectrum
https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/aerospace/aviation/flyingcar-company-terrafugia-is-bought-by-chinas-geely 3/3
But remember: Musk originally got rich—alongside Peter Thiel—by developing a new way to handle
money, culminating in PayPal. If you’re looking for a commercially compelling tech project, look no
further.
The Cars That Think Newsletter
Biweekly newsletter about the sensors, software, and systems that are making
cars smarter.
About the Cars That Think blog
’s blog about the sensors, software, and systems that are making cars smarter, more
entertaining, and ultimately, autonomous.
IEEE Spectrum
, Senior EditorPhilip E. Ross (/author/ross-philip-e)
, Assistant EditorWillie D. Jones (/author/jones-willie-d)
, Senior WriterEvan Ackerman (/author/ackerman-evan-)
, ContributorLucas Laursen (/searchContent?q=Lucas+Laursen)
Subscribe to RSS Feed (/rss/blog/cars-that-think/fulltext)