FutureFive New Zealand - Consumer technology news & reviews from the future
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Mon, 1st Aug 2011
FYI, this story is more than a year old

We all remember those old TV shows like The Jetsons, which portrayed the future full of amazing inventions like teleportation and flying cars. Although most of this has yet to come to fruition, we might not be too far off from flying cars. Moller's latest SkyCar M400 was developed with just this idea in mind. Dubbed a VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) vehicle, the SkyCar M400 can cruise through the air at up to 13, 200 feet and at a maximum speed of 375 miles per hour.Although this isn't the first flying car to see the light of day, previous versions were merely prototypes and were only able to fly on a limited basis and not very far. With this latest innovation from Moller, industry experts are predicting that the vision of every day flying cars will become a reality within 25 years, if not sooner. Of course, there will be a lot of planning required and many obstacles to overcome before flying cars can become mainstream. How would traffic laws and rules of the road work? Would everyone have to switch to flying cars or would regular cars still be available as well? What would happen in the case of a car crash in the air and how would we deal with this? Not to mention the inevitably high costs for such contraptions.It might be expensive but think of the time and daily stresses you would save being able to soar above traffic jams and get to your destination in a fraction of the time! This is one technology of the future that we can't wait to see!