Tech

Here's what a real flying car could look like

Danielle Muoio

2016-06-09T14:03:55Z

back to the future 2 flying cars — The classic flying car in "Back to the Future." Universal via Movieclips

Google co-founder Larry Page is personally investing in flying cars, according to a Bloomberg report.

Page has invested in two separate flying car start-ups, Zee.Aero and Kitty Hawk. There's not much information on what exactly the start-ups are working on, aside from whatever we can glean from Zee.Aero's patent drawings, which like all patents are subject to change.

But there are other flying car start-ups that have been more public about what they're working on.

Scroll down to see what flying cars could look like in the future.

Flying car start-up Terrafugia is working to build a driverless flying car by 2025.

The company, founded in 2006 by MIT's Aeronautics and Astronautics' department, finished its first flying car in 2014: The Terrafugia Transition.

But you have to get a Sport Pilot License to fly the Transition.

It can easily transition from a regular car to its flying form. The Transition has a 400-mile range and can reach 100 miles per hour.

But Terrafugia has turned its attention to the TF-X, which could take off, fly, and land autonomously.

The TF-X will be a plug-in hybrid car with a 500-mile range. Ironically, you would drive it manually even though it will fly autonomously.

"You'd tell it where to go, it would check the weather and for any temporary flight instructions ... and then it would suggest a route to the final destination," Carl Dietrich, co-founder of Terrafugia, previously told Tech Insider.

Whether the TF-X will become a reality depends on Terrafugia's conversations with the Federal Aviation Administration. "We are in a position to theoretically bring a product like this to the market in 2023 to 2025," Dietrich said.

A German company called e-Volo is close to making personal air taxis a reality. You can't drive it, so it's not a true flying car. But it does highlight how companies are thinking about personal flying options.