South Australian flying cars ready to race – at 360km/h
New Airspeeder Mk4 to inspire “a flying car the same price as a Tesla”Flying cars are not science fiction, insists a South Australian company that will next month begin piloted testing of its wild 360km/h Airspeeder ‘flying race car’, and has plans to commercialise the technology for private and personal use in the future.
“Once we can sell you a flying car for the same price as a Tesla, you’ll quickly see the balance shift,” says Alauda Aeronautics CEO, Matt Pearson.
“So the potential for people to own and drive their own flying car one day is absolutely enormous. It’s a very exciting time.”
The South Australian aerospace company this week confirmed the Airspeeder Racing Championship is on target to kick off in 2024 after revealing the first crewed version of its flying race car, the Airspeeder Mk4.
Designed and built in Adelaide and powered by electric motors fed by a 1000kW ‘Thunderstrike’ turbogenerator, the Airspeeder Mk4 is billed as the world’s fastest hydrogen electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft.
Airspeeder says it’s capable of reaching a top speed of 360km/h from a standing start in just 30 seconds, yet its sophisticated electric propulsion system, advanced aerodynamics and low take-off weight (MTOW) of just 950kg makes it both efficient and environmentally friendly, with a projected zero-emissions range of 300km.
Alauda Aeronautics says all this makes the Airspeeder Mk4 the world’s first and fastest crewed flying racing car for performance sports, and opens the door for “OEM teams to join Airspeeder in a motorsport revolution”.
“In unveiling the crewed Airspeeder Mk4 we show the vehicles that will battle it out in blade-to-blade racing crewed by the most highly-skilled pilots in their fields,” said Pearson.
Marking a huge milestone for Alauda, the latest Airspeeder ditches the remote controls of the Mk3 version, adds a human pilot to its flying race car for the first time and still delivers handling qualities more like a Formula 1 car or a fighter jet, says the company.
The South Australian flying car start-up has much greater ambitions for its flying car, however, and says it is “already looking beyond racing to a world where private flying cars are a daily reality and a viable means of urban transport”.
Alauda says the company’s team of designers and engineers from the likes of Boeing, Airbus, Ferrari and McLaren are confident its race tech can be leveraged for commercial products.
“You will see these technologies on the racetrack, however, eVTOLs are already a trillion-dollar industry and we see a very substantial market for private flying cars emerging in the near future.”
Not to be confused with winged flying cars – several of which are already being offered, like the Air Car and Terrafugia – eVTOLs are being developed by a range of car-makers including Toyota, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz and Xpeng.
In addition, Airbus is getting in on the eVTOL action and Uber Air previously promised to launch its own flying taxi service in Melbourne, Los Angeles and Dallas by 2023.
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