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Are The Fifth Element's Futuristic Flying Cars Finally Here?
We've been dreaming of flying cars for decades, and they might finally be ready for showtime.
When filmmakers set out to create a story set in a technologically advanced future, they lean on one universal hallmark to set the temporal stage: the flying car. Whether you’re watching The Jetsons or Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element (streaming now on Peacock and SYFY), when you see people driving personal aircraft along aerial highways, you know it’s the future.
The Fifth Element only spends part of its run time on Earth, but it makes good use of that time to show off the challenges of an ordinary commute in the 23rd Century. Shortly after Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) makes her first on screen appearance, she and Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis) get held up by the cops. At Leeloo’s frantic insistence, Dallas takes off, damaging his flying taxi and jeopardizing his license in the process.
The ensuing car chase is cooler than any that’s ever happened in real life. Over the course of just a few minutes of screen time, viewers follow Korben on a high-flying high-speed chase involving an aerial drive through, pursuing police vehicles flying in formation, lo-fi navigational systems, military-grade excessive force, and a mad dash vehicular escape cutting across all three dimensions.
We’ve got a couple of centuries before we catch up with the fictional timeline of The Fifth Element, but other flying car futures like Back to the Future II (set in 2015) and Blade Runner (set in 2019) have come and gone without flying cars materializing IRL. Recently, however, several companies have made progress, and some ambitious promises, regarding the future of aerial automobiles.
For More on Flying Cars:
'AirCar' Flying Car Adapts to Street and Sky with Transformers Style While Acing Intercity Flight Test
Up, Up, and Away! Hyundai Plans World's Smallest Airport for EVTOLs (AKA Flying Cars)
Another Flying Car Hits the Skies in Test Footage from SkyDrive's Latest Human Flight
The Flying Car Might Finally be Ready for Takeoff
Alef Aeronautics is an automotive and aviation company based out of California, committed to realizing the dream of a flying car. The company has spent the better part of a decade, since its formation in 2015, developing a prototype and testing a flying car that looks and flies a whole lot like the cars from The Fifth Element.
In the summer of 2023, the company received Special Airworthiness Certification from the Federal Aviation Association (FAA), allowing it to perform road and flight tests under limited conditions. The Model A aims to be the first widely available eVTOL (short for electric vertical takeoff and landing), and the company says it will be able to go 200 miles on the road, at a top speed of 25 miles per hour, or 110 miles over the air.
At a glance, the Model A looks like a car, but it’s actually a solid mesh frame housing a series of rotors, not unlike an oversized drone aircraft. A central compartment sits inside the rotors on a gimbal, keeping passengers steady and comfortable during flight. Every critical system has between three and eight redundant copies to minimize the risk of in-air mishaps as much as possible. It will also be capable of a glide landing in the event that something goes wrong, and you need to set down in a hurry.
As of March 2024, the company had reported nearly 3,000 preorders of the Model A, at an estimated price of $300,000 per customer. The flying car still hasn’t actually materialized, but the flying car economy is already off the ground, and even the big automakers are getting in on the action. Last year, Subaru unveiled a concept car using six rotors arrayed around a central compartment big enough to carry two passengers. It was just a concept, with no official production plans, but it’s clear they’re thinking about a flying future.
At this point, there are a few hundred startups working on various potential forms of flying cars. Some companies, like Alef, are focused on point-to-point aerial automobiles capable of taking you from your house to wherever you want to go, and back again. Others are focused on autonomous flying taxis carrying passengers between predetermined destinations, similar to existing public transit services.
The challenges inherent in a functional and safe flying car are significant. They have eluded us for so many decades not because of a lack of desire, but a lack of ability. But if Alef and hundreds of other companies have their way, we’re going to get our flying cars or die trying.
Catch The Fifth Element, streaming now on Peacock and SYFY.
