Flying cars are set to hit the market

An American aeronautical company has developed a flying car that can actually fly and is available for buying.

Funded by the US Department of Defense, the Transition is a four-wheel vehicle, licensed for the road, which transforms into a plane in about 20 seconds and can then fly up to 500 miles.

However, the Terrafugia Transition doesn’t come cheap.

"People tend to smirk when you say you're trying to make a flying car," the Age quoted Carl Dietrich, the Transition's inventor, as saying.

"But we're very serious about producing a flying car and selling it," he said.

Dietrich began developing Transition in 2006 at his company headquarters in Terrafugia, near Woburn, Massachusetts.

The first test flights took place in New York State in 2009 and Dietrich expects to deliver a finished product to his first 10 customers by next year, with production "ramping up" in 2014.

The starting price of Transition is 279,000 dollars (pounds 177,000), which is slightly less than the cheapest conventional two-seater aircraft and about the same as a supercar such as a Ferrari.

Electric cars set to hit Paris roads

PARIS: Paris will on Sunday launch an ambitious electrically powered car-share service that it hopes will not only improve the quality of life in the City of Lights but also herald a revolution in sustainable urban transport.

But the “Autolib” venture also constitutes a risky gamble both for Bertrand Delanoë, the Socialist mayor of Paris, and for Vincent Bolloré, France’s best-known corporate raider and buccaneering entrepreneur, who is supplying the electric cars and operating the new service.

In the volatile French pre-electoral political climate, Mr Delanoë hopes to repeat with the electric car project the huge popular and political – albeit costly – success of the Vélib bicycle-sharing scheme, which he launched four years ago.

The city of Paris, and its neighbouring suburban communes, have together invested more than €200m to construct the necessary infrastructure, from parking spaces to battery recharging stations. Organisers hope the project will eventually reduce the numbers of privately owned cars in the city’s crowded boulevards, while also cutting pollution.