OK. 
 
 
 
 From the story: 
 
 “One hundred years ago, urban transport went underground, now we have the technological wherewithal to go above ground,” Airbus CEO Tom Enders told the DLD digital tech conference in Munich, adding he hoped the Airbus could fly a demonstration vehicle for single-person transport by the end of the year. He said using the skies could also reduce costs for city infrastructure planners. “With flying, you don’t need to pour billions into concrete bridges and roads,” he reportedly said, indifferent to the fact the auto industry is simultaneously on a quest to bring autonomous vehicles to the market as soon as possible, while also neglecting the fact that human-driven cars will be on the road for some time to come. First of all, what Enders said wasn’t exactly news. More significantly, this month’s Airbus magazine story on the Vahana gives a lot of reasons to be skeptical. Advertisement 
 
 
 
 The flying car is the quintessential undelivered promise of future—right up there with “where’s my jetpack?”—so it seems natural that the term has caught on to describe these propeller-driven entities. Writing in Slate in 2013, Konstantin Kakaes observed the similarities between the drones of today and the helicopters of yesteryear: 
 
 As Samuel Solomon, the president of Northeast Airlines, told the Associated Press in 1943, “The helicopter has tremendous possibilities.” Solomon prophesied air taxi services in which helicopters picked up businessmen on a rooftop in Boston and dropped them off “on the roof of an office in downtown New York.” Helicopters would also be used for express air-mail services, he said… Of course, none of this came to pass, for one simple reason: Helicopters could do all of these things, but they could not do them cheaply or efficiently enough to displace other technologies.” 
 
 That's the same problem confronting vertical take-off and landing aircraft, before you even take into account tight regulations of airspace, privacy concerns, the provision of parking and landing facilities, and the fastidious maintenance procedures required of airborne vehicles.
– The future is now! Or, at least, by the end of the year, according to the CEO of Airbus. Reuters reports Tom Enders announced Monday that the company plans to test a prototype self-piloting flying car by the end of the year. He says Airbus has the "technological wherewithal" to make it happen and that they are currently in the "experimentation phase." Enders says the vehicle could be used like a ride-sharing app, help people avoid traffic, and save municipalities money on roads. Sounds pretty cool, but a number of naysayers are putting the brakes on our flying car fantasies. Slate points out Airbus admittedly hasn't figured out "sense-and-avoid technology"—or, in other words, how to keep its flying cars from smashing into stuff. And Jalopnik notes that current designs look less "flying car" and more "flying helicopter," which is slightly less exciting. Also, the whole flying car thing still needs FAA approval to become a reality, and that's probably not going to happen any time soon.