It’s 2015, so where are the flying cars? Sure, we have plenty of cool stuff like lifelike anime girl mousepads and plastic bag swimsuits, but where are the flying cars and floating cities that science fiction promised us would exist by now? I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of disappointed.
Thankfully one car company is picking up the slack: Toyota. They recently submitted a patent for their version of a flying car, complete with diagrams and detailed explanations. Is the future we were promised finally going to be a reality? Or is the only thing soaring in the sky our high hopes? Read on to find out!
On September 3, Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota filed a patent for what they’re calling “stackable wings for an aerocar.” Pretty much every word there has me excited, so let’s go ahead and take a look at what they’ve got!
▼ Umm… okay. I mean, the wheels are off the ground. That’s a start. But how does it fly?
▼ So is the thing on top like an accordion or something? Does it pump up and down?
▼ And what are these anyway? Wings? A flying hat for the car? How does it even work? Let’s take a look at the explanations…
▼ Translation: we’re still stuck driving on the lame old ground. Sigh.
So unfortunately it doesn’t look like we’re in the future just yet. Toyota’s patent is only for a wing system that could be used with a hypothetical “aerocar,” so it’s kind of like having a diagram of a gaming console’s controller without any idea what the console itself is like.
After getting their unrealistically high hopes crashed into the ground like everyone else, Japanese netizens had some comments to make about this patent from Toyota:
“I was so excited to finally see this in my lifetime… the wait goes on.”
“lol someone from Toyota has a sense of humor.”
“I am not looking forward to the day when Toyotas come falling down from the sky.”
“Are they a bunch of mad scientists?”
“It may look absurd, but if even one idea out of 100 works, then that’s a success.”
Agreed on that last point! Keep fighting the good fight, Toyota. Meanwhile we’ll all be here waiting and doing our best flying impressions on the ground.
Source: FreePatentsOnline via yurukuyaru and Jalopnik
Images: FreePatentsOnline
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