Flying cars have been prototypes since the early 1900s but none have reached production. A flying car provides door-to-door transportation by both road and air. Prototypes currently exist but major challenges include developing a propulsion system that is quiet, safe for urban areas, and powerful enough for flight while also being small, as well as addressing the high costs and low efficiency compared to traditional cars or planes. Concerns also exist around safety if used for personal transportation without extensive pilot training and vehicle checks. The flying car remains a common futuristic concept but technological and economic barriers have prevented widespread real-world use.

2. A flying car is a type of personal air
vehicle that provides door-to-door
transportation by both road and air. The
term "flying car" is often used to
include readable aircraft and hover cars.
Many prototypes have been built since
the first years of the twentieth century,
but no flying car has yet reached
production status.

3. In 1926, Henry Ford displayed an experimental
single-seat aero plane that he called the "sky
flivver". The project was abandoned two years
later when a distance-record attempt flight
crashed, killing the pilot.The Flivver was not a
flying car at all, but it did get press attention at
the time, exciting the public that they would
have a mass-produced affordable airplane
product that would be made, marketed, sold,
and maintained just like an automobile.

7. Aero Mobil currently fly-tests a prototype that obtained
Slovak ultra light certification. When the final product will be
available or how much it will cost is not yet specified.
Urban Aeronautics' X-Hawk is a VTOL turbojet
powered aircraft announced in 2006 with a first flight planned
for 2009.

10. A practical flying car would have to be capable of
safely taking off, flying and landing throughout
heavily populated urban environments. However, to
date, no vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicle
has ever demonstrated such capabilities. To
produce such an aircraft would require a propulsion
system that is quiet, to avoid noise complaints, and
has non-exposed rotors so it could be flown safely
in urban environments. Additionally, for such
aircraft to become airborne, they would require very
powerful engines.

11. Due to the requirement of propulsion that is both small
and powerful, the cost of producing a flying car would
be very high and estimated by some as much as 10
million dollars. In addition, the flying car's energy
efficiency would be much lower compared to
conventional cars and other aircraft; optimal fuel
efficiency for airplanes is at high speeds and high
altitudes, while flying cars would be used for shorter
distances, at higher frequency, lower speeds and lower
altitude. For both environmental and economic reasons,
flying cars would be a tremendous waste of resources.

12. Although statistically commercial flying is
much safer than driving, unlike commercial
planes, personal flying cars might not have as
many safety checks and their pilots would not
be as well trained. Humans already have
problems with the aspect of driving in two
dimensions (forward and backwards, side to
side), adding in the up and down aspect would
make "driving" or flying as it would be, much
more difficult; however, this problem might be
solved via the sole use of self-flying and self-
driving cars

13. The flying car was and remains a common feature
of conceptions of the future, including imagined near futures
such as those of the 21st century. Complaints of the non-
existence of flying cars have become nearly idiomatic as
expressions of disappointment in the failure of the present to
measure up to the glory of past predictions.

14. The flying car has been depicted in many works
of fantasy and flying cars appear in Star Wars where
they are called air speeders, such as those that can
be seen on the planet of Corus cant in all three Star
Wars prequel movies, from 1999's Star Wars:
Episode I science fiction.