What you see here is one of the most futuristic flying cars that would make any current hypercar look restrained in comparison. The Leo coupe is an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) flying car with a top speed that would shame many supercars. The Leo coupe is from Urban eVTOL, a joint-venture between Pete Bitar’s Electric Jet Aircraft and Carlos Salaff’s SALAFF Automotive.
Salaff has an automotive design background having designed futuristic concepts like the Mazda Furai along with also designing other Mazda cars like the 3 and MX-5. Bitar on the other hand is a VTOL and eVTOL inventor along with having owned companies like AirBuoyant, LLC and Electric Jet Aircraft.
The Leo coupe is the first result and it sure does look like it belongs to the skies with its sci-fi looks. Underneath that futuristic skin, it has a three-passenger seating capacity (including the pilot) and comes with a maximum speed of 250 mph (400 km/h). The Leo Coupe eVTOL aircraft has a range of 300 miles (483 km) and a flight time of 1 hour 15 minutes with reserves. The aircraft has 16 ducted fans for VTOL flight and 6 ducted fans for forwarding flight along with a double box-wing configuration.
For protection to passengers and the crew, the aircraft has ultra-safe ducted fans while it also makes for easy ingress and egress. It also has a transparent floor. The Leo coupe is surprisingly compact too with dimensions of 10 ft X 20 ft (3.05 meters X 6.1 meters), which makes it be able to fit in a standard garage. Other safety features include electric propulsion (DEP) where multiple propellers and motors are on the aircraft so if one or more motors or propellers fail, the other working motors and propellers can safely land the aircraft. Crucially, its landing gear uses the base of the wings reducing complexity, manufacturing costs, maintenance cost, and the weight of the aircraft.
The company has also designed a vertiport named the Vertistop where potential parking woes are eliminated. Urban eVTOL is going full strength with aiming to have a demonstrator in 2022. It will also apply for FAA certification and sell the aircraft as a partially built kit. The expected build time for the customer would be around 20 to 40 hours. Urban eVTOL says that the price for each aircraft will be in the range of $300,000.00 USD. What we can say is that sky is certainly the limit and in the future, this could be an interesting proposition!