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Flying cars are two years away, AeroMobil hopes to have them by 2017

AeroMobil is the next company looking to market flying cars. Will they be successful?

Flying cars have always been a vision of the future that has never quite caught up with the present. In 1989, “Back To The Future II” promised flying cars by 2015 and now that it’s 2015 AeroMobil is hoping to produce them by 2017.

AeroMobil CEO Juraj Vaculik unveiled his plans for a flying car in October 2014 and expanded upon those plans at South by Southwest on Sunday.

The vehicle looks like a car from the front with a jet exhaust pipe in the back and wings that unfold for flight.

AeroMobil is still working on developing materials both light enough for flight and sturdy enough to pass regulations. The company is currently experimenting with different engines and the next step will be to begin crash testing.

There are obvious obstacles to this venture, namely passing government regulations and building the necessary infrastructure. Engadget reports Vaculik saying the car will fit into the pre-existing regulations for both planes and cars and will be able to take off and land on grass as well as on a traditional runway tarmac.

Vaculik also claimed to have strong EU support and that the car should be ready to fly by 2017.

For now the car would be for rich hobbyists, as it will likely cost several hundred thousand euros, but Vaculik is hopeful that prices will drop with time, as the prices of technology usually do, according to Verge.

“We need another revolution, we need a revolution in personal transportation,” Vaculik said at the South by Southwest presentation, according to Verge. He went on to discuss the three metaphorical prisons that his product would free commuters from: traffic, airports, and crumbling infrastructure.

Vaculik's strong rhetoric and dreams of flying cars come from his days in former Czechoslovakia before the iron curtain fell when he wanted was to escape the oppressive government.

According to Engadget, although Soviet travel bans are no longer a factor, Vaculik still feels that "we need to move traffic from a 2D space to a 3D space."

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