Tucson

Make
Hyundai
Segment
SUV

Last year, we reported that Hyundai was serious about flying cars, despite discouraging news from Audi's attempt at the new mobility solution. Interestingly, flying cars were recently been made legal in one US state. Besides exciting new cars like the Hyundai Tucson, the Korean car company is truly pushing the limits of technology and even plans to build a walking robot, so it shouldn't be all that surprising that the country's biggest automaker has big plans to bring flying cars to the public as early as 2028.

That's just eight years from now, but if anyone can pull it off, Hyundai isn't a company we'd bet against. Hyundai is doing this right and doesn't want to be the trailblazer but rather the perfector of this mobility solution.

Speaking with The Detroit News, Jaiwon Shin, the head of Hyundai's urban air mobility unit, says: "People who are always stuck in traffic on the road will realize how convenient it is to move via aerial vehicles. That is when we will see demand explode." Sure, there will certainly be high demand, as none of us like sitting in traffic, but what of safety and regulatory obstacles? As it is, autonomous driving is proving extremely tricky to make legal and reliable. Well, Hyundai will find a way. Morgan Stanley analysts have predicted that personal air transport could become a $2.9 trillion industry by 2040, so it's well worth the trouble to make this work. Even in its most conservative estimates, the analysts predict that the industry will be worth at least $615 billion by 2040. That's worth fighting for.

Hyundai is working with Uber Technologies on this and hopes to have pilots from service providers like Uber flying the vehicles until they become autonomous sometime around 2035. Obviously, this would initially mean that the general public would not be able to operate such machines, but once regulations and laws are refined for this new means of transport, more people will be able to take to the skies. These laws will obviously include a way of ensuring that air traffic from airports is not interfered with and finding a way to ensure that certain flight paths are adhered to, thus keeping the skies safe.

Interestingly, Hyundai predicts that we could see flying cars within the next four years, but Hyundai is targeting 2028 to ensure that the infrastructure and safety protocols have been refined. "We don't want to be the first to the market," said Shin. "We want to be the first with the right product."