Flying cars, which don’t actually exist, have been a hot topic in the automotive world lately, largely due to companies like Airspeeder, which claims to have a flying car ready to race. And now, even NASCAR is buying into the hype, Adam Stern of the Sports Business Journal reports.
In a recent fan council survey, NASCAR polled viewers about their views on flying cars, and apparently the response was heavily in favor of NASCAR including some airborne element to its races in the near future. And it claims it’ll do that with Airspeeder, a flying car company that keeps claiming it’ll have flying race cars in the very near future.
Airspeeder’s website boasts its eVTOL, the Mk. 4, which it claims will be the “Formula 1 of the skies.” It claims a top speed of almost 100 mph, a better acceleration than the Tesla Model S, and an 880-lb body. That’s very cool and all, but the Mk. 4 isn’t a flying car because flying cars don’t actually exist. What Airspeeder is currently advertising is essentially a competitive drone. At my most generous, I might call it a helicopter, should a person actually step inside the cockpit. It is definitely not a flying car.
Of course, Airspeeder has claimed that it’s aiming to have manned flights as soon as 2022, but it also said the same thing in 2021, and many other “flying car” companies have consistently said the same thing.
This seems like one of NASCAR’s publicity stunts, something carefully cultivated to encourage fans to get worked up without actually providing anything of substance.
That said, nothing is definitive as of yet. This is currently something that NASCAR is studying, and should it choose to move forward with the flying car concept, it would probably do so via race weekend exhibitions. But if I’m honest, I just don’t see it happening from a sanctioning body that only just considered the whole “hybrid” thing.