University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute survey says two in five people would like to own an autonomous flying car, Recode reports.
One day we’ll all be jetting around in flying cars. Or that’s what Google co-founder Larry Page hopes will happen anyway. The billionaire is an investor in Kitty Hawk, the flying car startup that showed the world its aerial jetski in action last month.
Uber also has plans to bring flying cars to U. S. airspace by 2020, which the company shared at a conference it held in April to discuss its big sky vision of operating a network of aerial taxis.
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But will anyone actually want to ride in one of these weird, dangerous looking things?
Turns out a lot of people would.
Researchers Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle from the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute recently conducted a survey with 508 respondents from across the country to ask what they thought about flying cars. The respondents were fairly evenly split between men (48 percent) and women (52 percent) and across age brackets.
The study, published last month, showed that 44 percent of respondents were very interested in riding a fully autonomous flying taxi and 41 percent said they’d be interested in owning one.
Still, even if people are down to ride, they’re not sold on safety. 63 percent of respondents reported to be very concerned about how safe it would be to ride in one of these things (20 percent were moderately concerned and 11 percent were only slightly concerned) . That’s probably why nearly 80 percent said that they think it’s either very important or extremely important for flying cars to have a parachute on board.
When it comes to lifting straight off the ground like a helicopter — rather than using a landing strip — 83 percent of respondents overwhelming said they’d prefer vertical take off.
Men were more enthusiastic about the technology than women. 52 percent of male respondents reported feeling positive or very positive about flying cars, while only 38 percent of women were equally optimistic.
And in terms of practicality, 62 percent said they’d prefer the flying cars to seat between 3 and 4 people and 41 percent felt a flying car should be able to go for a minimum of about 400 miles before needing to recharge or refuel.
Here’s a video Kitty Hawk shared last month of its new aircraft:
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