Toyota has recently filed a strange patent that hints the company may be developing a flying car.
The patent was filed in the U.S. and published today for a "stackable wing for an aerocar."
The patent was originally filed on March 2, 2014 and its abstract reads: "A wing includes an upper surface that forms a generally fixed shape and a lower surface adjacent to the upper surface. The lower surface is morphable between a stowed shape and a deployed shape. A method of morphing a wing includes morphing a lower surface between a stowed shape and a deployed shape. The lower surface curves towards the supper surface in the stowed shape and curves away from the upper surface in the deployed shape."
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You'd be forgiven for not being able to decipher what all that jargon means. Although the patent itself focuses on a stackable wing, the more important news is that Toyota is apparently developing an aerocar with wings. In the background section of the patent, Toyota explicitly said, "The present disclosure pertains to a vehicle that can be flown as a fixed wing aircraft and driven as a land vehicle."
After doing some digging, we also found another patent that was published in August and filed in February for "a wing includes a dual channel wing with an outboard channel that extends spanwise from an inboard channel." Essentially it's a dual channel wing for an aerocar that can be stowed in a roadable mode within or against the aerocar, according to Toyota. This wing however, makes the car look really like an airplane, complete with propellers.
Perhaps all those dreams of flying cars may become a reality and it's surprising that Toyota is willing to invest into making that dream real.
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Filed under: Featured Articles Japanese Toyota Tags: flying car, Patents, Toyota Share Tweet Subscribe Get AutoGuide.com in your Inbox Like AutoGuide.com on Facebook More Auto News... Loading, please wait...Ridiculous flying car? Why not? They already developed that absurdly stupid hoverboard.
HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE THE WORLD'S AUTOMOBILE MANUFACTURERS TO CATCH UP WITH SAMUEL HAY?
With the thousands of automotive engineers and designers working around the world how is it possible for one man working alone, to produce designs light years ahead of everyone, including Tesla?
For all intents and purposes, there is nothing else on the planet even close to the technology created by Samuel Hay. Of course he didn't just come out of nowhere. He was inventing things as early as 1950 when he was only eight years old and was a solar energy pioneer in the sixties. Everyone alive today has seen and even touched many of his designs over the years.
Of particular interest is that his ninth grade English class paper, for 25% of the totally yearly grade was titled, "My Career in Automotive Engineering." He says you can ask his pal Johnny Presley who used it as a guide for his own paper after learning Hay made an A+!
Maybe the "Automobile of the Future" will be his crowing glory but he really doesn't think so. Now into deep space propulsion, which he states has nothing do to with solid or liquid fuel, seems to light up his face when he discusses what little he can divulge at this point.
Beginning with the concept that automobiles have not made one bit of real progress in a hundred years, he spent five full years on nothing but passenger safety. Having successfully designed the safest automobile passenger compartment ever, he proceeded to design the car around that. Maybe that explains why it is totally indistinguishable as an automobile!
If you took a dozen people having seen the automobile for the first time, most likely each and everyone would say, "I have absolutely no idea what that is!"
So, we determine that the most advanced automobile on earth doesn't have to look like an automobile. First of all, it has no doors. The passenger compartment has no blind spots and is impervious to most any condition which may be encountered on the highway. You have to ask yourself, "Who on earth wouldn't want to own the safest car money can buy?" And that brings up another important point, the cost. This automobile is so simple to build, it is going to be a shock, pricewise, to the automotive world.
How could that possibly be? Its just too simple. If you walk into a parts store today, look around, you would discover almost 90% of everything you look at will be obsolete. Not because so many new parts will be required but because, again it is so very simple to construct. And fewer parts means less intensive labor costs as well.
Just to name a few; it has no brakes as you know brakes. No drums, pads, rotors, discs, nothing, and that means there are no parts of this nature to ever wear out. How well does it stop? How does 47 feet from 60 to zero sound to you?
With no engine, transmission, drive shafts, short shafts, clutches, universal joints, pressure plates it really does start to get interesting.
No computers, no airbags, but again remember the origins were in passenger safety so never fear. There are just so many things it doesn't have due to the advantages of the design and it is a dream to maintain. You just have no idea how this all could be until you see it for yourself. One of the main components is even a sustainable product! Not a metal or an alloy. The car also has no known shocks or springs as such.
Who will own this technology in the future? Who will dominate the entire automobile industry, worldwide, for decades to come? Time will tell as Hay moves on to his more recent projects and hopes the best man wins out to manufacture The Automobile of the Future.
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