Flying cars coming to Coober Pedy

Australian tech start-up Alauda Racing says it will host a flying car race in Coober Pedy before the year is up.

The Airspeeder drone-based airborne racing tech was demonstrated during the 2019 Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK, and now co-founder Matt Pearson says an exhibition race will be held in the deserts of Coober Pedy in South Australia.

"Australia's been a great place to test drones, even Google and Amazon have chosen Australia for their test programs because of fairly advanced regulations," Pearson told the ABC.

With few obstacles to get in the way of the racing, deserts are well-suited to air racing.

Smaller three-quarter-scale versions of the Airspeeder drones that can reach speeds of around 60km/h will be used in the demonstration race, but Airspeeder plans to have manned flying cars duking it at speeds of up to 200km/h.

The airborne motorsport is described as a blend of Formula 1 and Formula E – only in mid-air.

"Le Mans, Bathurst, Monaco, there are these amazing places where we've seen the birth of new sports," Pearson said, adding that Australia is “…such a great place for us to basically create that next iconic place for racing.”

While the first race will use unmanned drones, Airspeeder has already shown off the manned flying cars, which measure just over four metres long or roughly the size of a small hatchback.

The single-seat ‘Mk4’ Airspeeder has a carbon-fibre shell, can reach speeds of up to 200km/h when hovering around 20 metres off the ground, and weighs just 230kg – about one fifth of a similarly sized terrestrial car.

Powered by eight 45kW electric motors, the piloted Airspeeder has a maximum altitude of 900 metres and can fly for around 10 minutes before the battery needs replacing.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has given Airspeeder authorisation to fly large commercial drones but piloted flying cars have not yet been given approval.

“We're working on that with the authorities,” said Pearson, “…but it is in process and we hope very soon we'll have that possibility."

Australia to be flying car pioneer

Australia looks set to be at the forefront of the flying car revolution, as air taxis and other passenger-carrying airborne drones – or vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) craft – become reality.

"There's an opportunity now for Australia to do that for the urban air mobility market, air taxis and flying cars," said Pearson.

Along with Dallas and Los Angeles in the USA, Melbourne has been chosen as one of three cities to host the world’s first Uber Air flying taxi service out of Tullamarine airport.

Trial flights for the Uber Air project are planned to kick off this year (but coronavirus may end up creating challenges) ahead of commercial operations starting in 2023.

"With electric aviation, with the drone industry, with the autonomous vehicle industry boom – all the technology that makes autonomous electric cars possible, are making the electric flying cars industry," said Pearson.

While Flying cars may sound fanciful, several car brands are working on legitimate airborne mobility solutions, such as Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Porsche and Geely.

While Audi has suspended its flying car plans and is reviewing its partnership with Airbus, Toyota is working on a flying car that will make its debut at the postponed Tokyo Olympics.

Pearson said VTOLs equipped with multiple propellers are far safer than helicopters.

"A helicopter has thousands of moving parts, and a single point of failure which makes them very expensive to maintain," he told the ABC.

"An air taxi has about 16 moving parts and about half of those are redundant, so it's a very safe, very stable platform.

"Taxis are a great thing to do with this technology, but we also think that there's a great place to fuel innovation in racing," he said.

"Racing has always driven technology innovation more than anything else," said Pearson.