Hasta La Ideas

In recent years people have slowed down on expecting flying cars, as it seems that segment of the mobility industry is moving towards VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) vehicles that don’t have wheels.

Chinese automaker GAC, however, has a novel concept that is sort of a flying car. Their GOVE concept looks incredibly ungainly:

The strange form makes a little more sense once the concept is explained. The idea is that you’re driving down the road, and can spontaneously do this:

The thinking is that after you lift off, the autonomous chassis drives itself to a charging station to top off, then reunites with you further down the road.

It’s a super strange concept that raises all sorts of practical issues, but it is nice to see a major Chinese manufacturer—GAC is one of that country’s largest—demonstrating outside-of-the-box thinking in the concept space, rather than following trends. (In contrast, the ground-based models the company currently sells are pretty derivative.)

Full concept video below.