In honor of the Terrafugia Transition—which recently received a 110-pound exemption from the FAA!—we’re posting online, for the first time ever, Daniel Albert’s Issue 5 review of flying cars. Back in 2006, Albert predicted Terrafugia would be the first to send a car flying—he was impressed by the company’s Latin name—and four years later it looks like he was right. The nplusonemag news team caught up with Albert over email. He’d been waiting for us. The Transition still costs $200,000, Albert pointed out, and the road and other infrastructural hurdles he discussed in his article hadn’t changed. But had we noticed that soon after the Terrafugia announcement, electric car maker Tesla went public and saw its stock price nearly double on its first day of trading? “Why the excitement, why now?” asked Albert. “Flying cars and electric roadsters may be as far out as they ever were, but in the face of perpetual petroleum wars and the oily annihilation of the Gulf Coast, you can’t blame the world for wishing for a vehicle of deliverance.”
