3 ms·
...what? Moller got sued halfway to China, is bankrupt, and never shipped, and this is not Moller's car, nor does it use anything approaching the same design,
by gecko 15y ago
...what? Moller got sued halfway to China, is bankrupt, and never shipped, and this is not Moller's car, nor does it use anything approaching the same design, nor does it share the same goal.
Moller's car was about making flying as easy as driving; this is about having a car that can turn into a convention aircraft. Or, more specifically:
Moller's car was based on duct fans; this is a traditional propeller aircraft.
Moller's car couldn't drive on roads; this is explicitly designed to (and is the aspect that was just approved, if you read the article).
Moller's car was designed to eschew traditional flight controls in favor of a do-what-I-mean approach; this aircraft has a completely normal yoke/rudder/throttle setup, where the yoke doubles as a steering-wheel in car mode.
Maybe this is the idea of Moller, in some very abstract sense, but I think you could make an equally strong claim that it was Jules Verne's ideas realized--and he never pretended to be trying to ship something.