In 2025, the low-altitude economy was officially incorporated into national strategic emerging industries; entering 2026, however, the buzz was largely overshadowed by robots and AI (Artificial Intelligence). It is precisely at this seemingly cooling juncture that flying cars have reached a turning point. To discuss this, the first step is not to talk about technology, but to clarify the concepts.
● You Must First Distinguish: Flying Cars Are Not Flying Drones
Simply put, a flying car is essentially a car that flies. Whether its form adopts an aircraft configuration or a car configuration is unimportant; what matters is that it takes off directly from the ground as a manned vehicle.
In this regard, it is entirely different from the eVTOLs discussed in today's low-altitude economy and consumer-grade drones.
Drones are more akin to unmanned devices or toys, whereas flying cars, regardless of how they are defined, are manned vehicles. From configuration and application scenarios to technical requirements, these represent two different dimensions.
The technological gap between a company capable of making drones and one capable of making flying cars is enormous; a drone company cannot simply switch to making flying cars overnight. In other words, these are the underlying logics of two distinct fields and cannot be conflated.
Based on their technological origins, today's participants in the flying car sector can be divided into two factions.
◎ One is the aviation faction, comprising new ventures founded by experts from the traditional aviation field;
◎ The other is the automotive faction, namely traditional automakers aiming to make cars fly. Both factions are moving forward, but the depth of their underlying technological accumulation differs significantly.
Electric vehicles have accumulated processes and talent over thirty to forty years, whereas the true technological accumulation for flying cars may only span five years. This forms the foundation for discussing all subsequent issues.
The development of this industry can be divided into three stages.
◎ The first stage involves technological reserves and orderly policy support;
◎ The second stage involves the implementation of relevant application scenarios;
◎ The third stage is when actual cars truly fly, becoming a commuting transportation tool in people's daily lives.
Only then will a true boom occur. What we are discussing today is indeed a highly forward-looking topic.
● The Most Easily Ignored: MCUs in the Sky May Crash Mysteriously
Having clarified the definition, we now turn to the most hardcore yet easily overlooked aspect: safety. The safety requirements for flying cars are not entirely identical to those of automobiles or aviation.
In automotive development, the industry relies on the AUTOSAR architecture and ISO 26262 standard, with the highest level being ASIL D, which primarily addresses the safety issues of the sub-components themselves.
The aviation field is different; it complies with standards such as DO-178C and DO-254, classified by DAL levels, with the highest being DAL A. Its starting point is system requirements, aiming to resolve system-level safety issues. Different routes lead to the same destination; everyone pursues safety, just through different paths.
What needs careful verification is that flying cars operate at altitudes of 1,000 to 3,000 meters, facing a radiation environment absent on the ground. Alpha particles, beta particles, and various neutron radiations, when acting on the MCU (Microcontroller Unit), will produce single-event effects, causing unexpected and mysterious crashes, the causes of which cannot be traced.
In other words, chips that are reliable on the ground are not necessarily reliable in the sky. This is precisely where automotive chip experience needs to be re-examined.
This is also why Infineon is promoting the development of flying cars starting from its automotive business. To put it vividly, the AURIX MCU used in the automotive industry today is akin to channel steel used in building construction, while the industrial-grade solutions used in the traditional drone industry are more like old-fashioned wooden structures.
The system failure rate of industrial-grade solutions is roughly at the 10^-5 to 10^-6 level, while AURIX itself features components close to the 10^-8 level. Using it to build a system can achieve a system-level safety of 10^-9 or even better. It is currently the only chip in the automotive industry capable of achieving a failure rate of 0.1 FIT.
Based on standards such as AEC-Q101 and AQG-324, the automotive industry has a massive accumulation of data from 80 to 90 million new cars annually, whereas the aviation field often conducts its own system integration and development on top of these standards. The lack of unified standards in the industry is itself a pain point.
In this regard, the mature solutions of automotive chips are precisely the most realistic safety foundation for flying cars at present.
The flying cars seen today focus more on subsystem and multi-system level redundancy without emphasizing integration; whereas the automotive industry emphasizes integration. These represent two different technological development directions. When the industry truly develops to rival automobiles, it may indeed require a chip specifically designed for flying cars, which is an inevitable requirement of technological advancement.
● Never Directly Transfer the Lightweight Logic of Automobiles to the Sky
Finally, there is a more product-oriented issue: weight, and the logical differences behind it.
In recent years, NEVs (New Energy Vehicles) have been getting larger and larger. Cars measuring 5.2 or 5.3 meters solve the problem of space, packing various items inside to become a mobile living space.
What flying cars need to solve is the issue of time, specifically commuting time. To fly fast, they must inevitably be light, reducing weight across various dimensions.
Notably, in the flying car sector, every kilogram is said to be worth 10,000 RMB. The logic behind this is that weight directly translates to energy consumption.
Reducing the weight of an electric drive from 5 kg to 4 kg saves only 6 kg across six motors; but for batteries, doubling the power density yields an immediate weight reduction effect. This is also why high energy density solutions like condensed-state batteries are more critical for flying cars than for automobiles.
It has now become a trend for electric vehicles to run at the Nürburgring, but for flying cars, the requirement for power density is nearly infinite; the higher, the better.
Deduced forward from constraints: the pursuit of power density for flying cars has no upper limit, while for NEVs, even if they can afford higher energy density, the cost is prohibitive. In this regard, flying cars are willing to pay a higher premium for lightweighting, which in turn drives the continuous advancement of electric drive and battery technologies.
With the help of silicon carbide (SiC) discrete devices, driver chips, and switching speed optimization, electric drive efficiency can reach over 99.6%. Superimposing three-level technology, there is still room for improvement of over 2%. These technologies were originally restrained in automobiles due to costs, but they have found their application in flying cars.
At this juncture in 2026, the buzz around flying cars is not as high as last year, but it is a turning point and also a beginning. The state is managing this process; once type certifications are intensively obtained by the end of the year or early next year, the growth trajectory will be extremely steep. By 2030, the global scale is expected to reach tens of thousands or even approach 100,000 units.
Speaking from the dream of automotive professionals, this is a step from the ground to the sky. The so-called flying car is precisely a natural extension into three-dimensional space after forty years of accumulation in the automotive industry.