Cars might be flying sooner than you thought

Driving on roads is so 2014. All the cool cars will soon be flying, hovering, or in the water.

Elon Musk wants Tesla to offer a flying car, which he told Britain's The Independent isn't "the hard part. The hard part is, how do you make a flying car that's super safe and quiet? Because if it's a howler, you're going to make people very unhappy." Terrafugia, a company out of Massachusetts, is already testing the Transition, a two-seat aircraft with wings that can fold up — Terragufia calls it a "street-legal airplane." Not to be outdone, Toyota announced Monday that it is looking into making a car that will hover just slightly above the road, which should improve fuel efficiency due to reduced friction.

Their ideas aren't new — companies have been trying develop a flying car for years. In 1916, a car that was able to fly in "short bunny hops" was created, the Los Angeles Times notes, and in 1926, Henry Ford unveiled a 15-foot long aircraft he called the "Model T of the Air."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

But Musk is interested in more than just flying; he also wants a submarine car, for those times when it just makes sense to get to your destination covered in sand. At least he's realistic about how many people will be clamoring for this type of vehicle. "Maybe we'll make two or three, but it wouldn't be more than that," he said. "It's not like we'd sell it, because I think the market for submarine cars is quite small."