Giant, unlockable drone sketches published by Toyota; is the Japanese giant really developing a flying car?
Recently, Toyota has provided support to a Japanese start-up company who wants to launch a flying car for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The structure we see on our opening screen is rather clumsy, but perhaps it was inspired by Toyota's own development, which was published by the Swiss Patent Office this week, where the concept was registered.
The construction is quite bold: four arms out of the top of the body, the wheels at the end of the down bars. They are driven by brain motors, steered by changing the speed of each wheel - the skid-steer system that is commonly used in machines is hopefully tuned to a more sophisticated way, by (ie if at all) serial production.
When we want to fly, the arms lift up the wheels, the wheel hub revolves around, and the brain motors lift the vehicle into the air - in principle.
The whole structure is more like a folding drone than a classic flying structure, but the recently presented Audi / Airbus co-operation is based on a similar principle, except that only the body-mounted, chassis and propellers can be dismantled and replaced.
(Source: vezess.hu / photo: pixabay.com)