Elon Musk says making a flying car would be easy.
“Maybe we’ll make a flying car, just for fun,” said Elon Musk during the interview with the Independent UK. “I’ve thought about it quite a lot, we could definitely make a flying car – but that’s not the hard part. The hard part is, how do you make a flying car that’s super safe and quiet? Because if it’s a howler, you’re going to make people very unhappy.”
This statement would seem like an off-the-cuff remark in an interview with any other entrepreneur. But with Musk’s history of actually following through with things he talks about, and considering the fact that he’s given the idea some serious thought, we might actually see a concept flying car in his lifetime.
Apart from flying cars, Musk is also interested in amphibious vehicles. “We will be making a submarine car. It can transition from being a submarine to a car that drives up on the beach,” he said. “Maybe we’ll make two or three, but it wouldn’t be more than that. It’s not like we’d sell it, because I think the market for submarine cars is quite small.”
Within three years, he said, he wants to release a car with a similar range priced at about £25,000. But he promises there will be no compromising on performance. “We’re never going to release an ugly car. We want it to look good, to feel good, to have good acceleration, handling, everything.”
Mr Musk also revealed that Tesla is looking “quite seriously” at opening an engineering research and development centre in the UK.
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Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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