The Terrafugia VTOL
China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group (Geely) will acquire the operations and assets of Terrafugia, a US-based company focused on the
engineering and production of flying cars and other future technologies.
Geely also owns Lotus and Volvo Cars, and sells taxis under the London Taxi brand.
Terrafugia was founded in 2006 by five graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Since its inception, the company has delivered a number of working prototypes of a new form of global mobility – the flying car.
Terrafugia aims to deliver its first flying car (the Transition) to the market in 2019, with the world’s first vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) flying car being made available by 2023.
Under the agreement between Geely and Terrafugia, Terrafugia will remain domiciled and headquartered in the US, and continue to focus on its existing mission of developing flying cars.
Terrafugia is to benefit from Geely’s “significant expertise and track record of innovation within the global auto industry”.
“The past year has been a transformative one for Terrafugia,” says Terrafugia co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) Carl Dietrich.
“Since founding the company, one of our greatest challenges has been funding operations at a level that would allow for both growth and getting the Transition into production.
“Geely brings a commitment to Terrafugia’s vision and team, international expertise, and the resources to make not only Transition, but an ambitious future product roadmap, a reality.
“Their involvement has already enabled the Terrafugia team to grow, including bringing on Chris Jaran as CEO – a move which has allowed me to focus technically as CTO. Our engineering team is also growing rapidly, both in Woburn and in the San Francisco Bay Area.”
Jaran is the former MD for Bell Helicopter China.
In anticipation of the Geely buy-out, Terrafugia’s team of engineers in the US has already been tripled over the past quarter.
“The team at Terrafugia have been at the forefront of believing in and realising the vision for a flying car and creating the ultimate mobility solution,” says Zhejiang Geely Holding Group founder and chairperson Li Shufu.
“This is a tremendously exciting sector and we believe that Terrafugia is ideally positioned to change mobility as we currently understand it and herald the development of a new industry in doing so.”