The thing is, we have had "flying cars" - helicopters - for almost 100 years. Helicopters match the core functionality of a flying car: can fly, can carry 2-6 p

The thing is, we have had "flying cars" - helicopters - for almost 100 years. Helicopters match the core functionality of a flying car: can fly, can carry 2-6 people, can take off and land almost everywhere. So why are helicopters still relatively rare, and what is different in a "flying car" that people dream about? It's not 4 tiny wheels after all (and you can get a helicopter with tiny wheels). * Price: helicopters are expensive to buy, and very expensive to maintain. You need about 1 hour of maintenance for every 10 flight hours. * Fuel cost: vertical thrust for lift is very energy intensive. * Difficult to pilot: needs professional training. * Noise and airspace restrictions: many cities do not allow personal helicopters to fly low or land in urban areas due to noise and fear of accidents. "Difficult to pilot" is the only area where I see significant possible improvements in the near future, if autopilot gets good enough to remove the pilot altogether. But there is no obvious engineering breakthrough on the horizon that will improve the maintenance, energy use or noise issues. Maybe if there is a breakthrough in battery technology, then electric helicopters could improve on both the energy and maintenance costs, but that is not really up to people working on "flying cars".