---
title: "Flying Cars May Work Best When Tethered to Power Lines"
description: "## LET'S GO FLY A KITE"
date: "2018-09-14"
modified: "2018-09-14"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/flying-cars-tethered-power-lines"
categories:
  - "Advanced Transport"
tags:
  - "advanced transport"
  - "flying cars"
  - "infrastructure"
  - "transport"
  - "vtol"
---

# Flying Cars May Work Best When Tethered to Power Lines

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/ｆｌｙｉｎｇ－ｃａｒ－ｐｏｗｅｒｌｉｎｅ.png>)
*\<em\>Image: Emily Cho\</em\>*

## LET'S GO FLY A KITE

Flying cars always work perfectly in the movies. But now that we’re close to actually building some, we’re finding they come with [all sorts of problems](<https://futurism.com/uber-flying-taxi-skyports-concepts>). Perhaps the most prominent technological hurdle: striking the delicate balance between equipping the vehicles with a battery powerful enough to actually do anything useful, and not having a battery so heavy that it weighs down the entire vehicle.

One California start-up came up with a new solution that involves keeping so-called flying cars on a pretty short leash. Karman Electric proposes tethering [flying cars](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/evtol-flying-taxi-uk>) to a crisscrossed network of power lines. As *WIRED* reported, they already began [testing the concept with quadcopter drones](<https://www.wired.com/story/karman-electric-flying-car-air-taxi-power-lines/>).

## TRAFFIC JAM

Tethering a flying car to the ground may avoid the big battery problem, but it introduces a whole slew of *other* logistical problems.

In order to prevent bird strikes and collisions with primitive, terrestrial commuters, Karman envisions flying cars that use this upside-down trolley system in less populated areas (another problem: who's gonna pay for that?). As they approach cities and towns, pilots would be able to detach from their earthly bonds and use stored-up battery power to elevate above those land-bound suckers.

## HEY HERE'S A THOUGHT

If the most energy-efficient way to use a flying car is to tether it to the ground on a specific, pre-defined pathway, *why not just take a train*? We already have those, and they work pretty well.

**READ MORE:** To Solve Flying Cars' Biggest Problem, Tie Them to Power Lines \[*[WIRED](<https://www.wired.com/story/karman-electric-flying-car-air-taxi-power-lines/>)*\]

***More on the challenges of flying cars: [Uber Plans To Launch Flying Taxis With Technology That Doesn’t Exist](<https://futurism.com/uber-flying-taxis>)***

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)