Flying cars are not even really a thing yet but the first race is already being organized. According to the website TransportUp two of its own vehicles developed with Airspeeder will race in South Australia before the end of the year. The Airspeeders are each capable of carrying a pilot but will be unmanned and remotely piloted for the race. “We’re working on that with the authorities—so not yet, but it is in process and we hope very soon we’ll have that possibility,” Alauda co-founder Matt Pearson told the website. The race will be held in Coober Pedy, a small remote town in northern Southern Australia that has what TransportUp says is an “extraterrestrial-style” landscape.
The vehicle is described as a cross between a racing drone and a Formula 1 race car and will go 124 MPH. It has flown in demo flights, including a public flight that didn’t go so well, but that’s all part of the learning curve according to Pearson. He said it’s been a big year on the technological development side of things in the electric VTOL business. “With electric aviation, with the drone industry, with the autonomous vehicle industry boom—all the technology that makes autonomous electric cars possible, are making the electric flying cars industry,” he said.
