No, the children’s doodle of a flying car pictured here isn’t a joke. This is an actualToyota patent filing for a “stackable wing for an aerocar” that was just recently published by the U.S. Patent Office and reported byAutomotive News. That horizontal line with the diagonal squiggles underneath it? That’s the ground. The wheels attached to that baleen Prius-shaped thing with a dorsal fin? Yeah, those arenot touching the ground. Now may we direct your attention to the series of wings that look to be fitted to a tall pole protruding from the vehicle’s roof; this stackable wing apparatus forms the actual meat of Toyota’s patent filing.
To read the patent filing, which was jointly submitted by Toyota and two inventors, is to be fed the assumption that “aerocars” are a mature technology in search of improvements. Trivial matters like propulsion sources are brushed off, Toyota offering that thrust could be sourced from things “such as a pusher propeller, open rotor, turbofan, or other thrust generation system in flight mode.” You know, plane stuff. It appears that Toyota is merely hedging against future use of a similar stacked-wing design with various power sources, both for in-flight and on the road.
Founder of Auto Rebellion | Guest writer for zerotohundred.com