Entrepreneur’s vision for a flying car ‘no longer pie in the sky’

Israeli-US start-up NFT Inc is about to build an electric car that both drives the highways and can fly from a vertical takeoff.

A prototype for the Aska flying electric car. Picture: Supplied

Many feel cars will fly when pigs can fly. Not so Israeli-US start-up NFT Inc which has engaged engineers to build an electric car that both drives the highways and can fly from a vertical takeoff.

That car, the Aska, was a discussion point at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Co-founder Guy Moshe Kaplinsky was there to spruik the Aska’s benefits, aided by a simulation video that showed how the car’s neatly folded wings would fold out to allow the Aska to take off where there’s sufficient space to do so.

Mr Kaplinsky said NFT (an acronym for Next Future Transportation) had spent the past three years designing and building a prototype of the flying Aska. Flight testing of a scale model would begin in three months with full production within five years.

His concept is different to that of Uber, Hyundai and others who want to bring a flying electric taxi to market as a ride-sharing option. Boeing, Bell, Audi, Opener and Kitty Hawk are others that have been developing eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft designed as air taxis.

Kaplinsky’s Aska is straight out of Back to The Future. His vehicle plies the road as a regular car, stops, opens its wings, and then vertically lifts off — no runway is required. “The vehicle will carry up to four people,” Kaplinsky said.

“Current batteries will fly 200km and future batteries will fly 350km.” With a range like that, it might be possible to drive/fly from Melbourne to Tasmania.

The Aska electric car by Israeli-US start-up NFT Inc. The car can both drive and fly. Picture: Supplied

The prospect of a drive and fly car opens up a can of worms. Will traffic authorities create designated highways in the sky? What about countries with land-based borders: would daredevil drivers fly over them to avoid customs or fly over fences into restricted government areas for snooping?

Mr Kaplinsky was adamant that the flying car was possible and his company would have it in production. “We’ve been working for the last three years on the simulation and the design and everything’s working,” he said, adding the needed components had already been tested. “We’re quite confident it will happen,” he said.

Still, numerous larger companies have tried in the past and failed. And cars are not the same aerodynamic shape as sleek aircraft. Can they fly efficiently?

“We’ve spent a lot of time on the aerodynamics,” he said. “That’s a key issue, especially because it’s electric propulsion mainly, and it has to be super aerodynamic in order to get the range that we want it to do.”

He acknowledged safety was a major concern. Aska not only had to be safe in the skies, but there were safety issues around people getting into the Aska and taking off where allowed on roads, rather than in airfields.

While it is mainly an electric vehicle, Aska also has a combustion engine in case of emergency.

Mr Kaplinsky said NFT was working with NASA and authorities in the US and Europe. Australia was a market of interest.

Whether Aska is pie in the sky remains to be seen. We’ll have a better idea once scale model trials take place this year. Mr Kaplinsky is married to Maki Kaplinsky. They have a track record as serial entrepreneurs.

Chris Griffith attended CES in Las Vegas courtesy of Hisense Australia.