Is Toyota, the world's largest car maker toying with the idea of being the first to produce a flying car? The Japanese auto maker has recently filed a patent, but did not actually refer to it as a flying car.
Its patent, number US20150246720 stated that it is for "an aerocar including a stackable wing and methods for morphing the stackable wing ... atop the aerocar."
The actual emphasis made by the document is for the wings installed on top of a regular car. But the way these wings would operate and its many technological features are not divulged in the patent application.
Technology has so far advanced now that flying cars are no longer limited to the 1962 TV series "The Jetsons," or the DeLorean of McFly in "Back to the Future" film series. A report that came out in April 2010 revealed the flying car being developed then by the U.S. military for purposes other than daily street driving.
The report indicated that a flying car will be a possibility in 2015, and will be released for U.S. soldiers. It will be suited for the battle field and can have a total reach of 250 miles in one full tank.
This flying car will also be able to run on the ground aside from being able to fly through the air. The car is designed to enable troops to avoid conventional as well as unconventional threats like Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), ambushes and road obstructions.
"We're not very far down the road. That gives you an idea about the glide path for this program," said one of the developers of the flying car.
But commercially speaking, Toyota, or any of its competitors in car manufacturing, is about to roll out a flying car any time soon. Instead, it is concentrating now on autonomous or self-driving cars, such as those being developed by Google and others.
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