Flying car cleared for take off: Jetson One. Video / Jetson
The inventors of a 'flying car' have not hidden their ambitions for the futuristic vehicle.
The builders of personal transport drone the Jetson One say it is a vehicle which "anyone can buy and operate".
Retailing at $150,000 - or roughly the price of a new Tesla Model S - the vision of having a space-age craft on your drive is not out of reach.
Even the name suggests comic book Sci-fi fantasy.
Taking inspiration from Hanna Barbera cartoon series The Jetsons, the Italian Start up clearly has lofty goals for where they see the technology taking people.
The company unveiled the one-man hovercraft last year at a demo. With a range of around 30km and reaching speeds of 99km per hour, the Jetson occupies the same sort of utility as a city run-around - minus the traffic jams.
You won't be taking one to the shops any time soon. There is currently no space for additional passengers or groceries in the one-man machine.
As well as the limited max pilot payload of 85kg, there are other factors slowing the spread of the personal passenger drone.
The limited production number means that they have been completely sold out since launch in October last year.
But this could soon change, after the company secured a new $17 million investment and took over a new development facility in North Italy.
A demonstration of the Jetson One in Arezzo, Italy. Photo / Supplied, Jetson
Customers on the waiting list will be invited to visit the eVTOL (all-electric vertical take-off and landing) centre to test-fly their purchase in early 2023.
"The Tuscan climate allows for perfect flight testing conditions and the 800 metre airstrip means we can continue to fly daily," said the company on handover of the new facility.
The novel kind of personal aircraft was demonstrated at the new base in Arezzo, Italy.
Flying over trees and building height, co-founder Peter Ternström said it was a very different experience to other aircraft.
"The first time I flew it, it felt amazing — it's completely vibration free so it's nothing like a helicopter or aeroplane," he said, during a press conference last year.
Jetson's flying car will be landing on the drives of pilots around the world, later this year. Photo / Supplied, Jetson
Having founded the company in 2017 with partner Tomasz Patan, the craft are ready to take flight.
The first vehicles are due to be delivered in the next couple of months. Lofty ambitions for future designs include space for passengers and a "four-seater flying car to be competing with road transport within the next ten years.
Currently the use of the single-passenger drones has its limits.
The flying vehicles are governed by local civil aviation authorities and are not currently allowed to be flown in cities.
With 20 minutes flight from a two-hour charge, and a range of roughly Auckland CBD to Whangaparāoa the practicality of the aircraft is questionable.
However Ternström says practicality hasn't been the first consideration for the first customers of the flying, electric "sports car".
"Imagine turning up to a suburban McDonalds in one of these!"
Future of flying taxis
Other iterations of the VTOL electric drone have been attracting serious investment this week, with United Airlines having placed an order for 200 electric flying machines.
On Friday, United invested $25 million in competitors Eve Air Mobility. The airline announced a "conditional purchase agreement" for two hundred units from the subsidiary of Brazilian aerospace company Embraer.
