Dutch flying car finally cleared for take-off by 2028

Dutch flying car maker PAL-V has been given the go-ahead to start building something that could be in the skies in 2028.

The European aviation safety agency EASA gave the company, based in Noord-Brabant, a production licence, meaning it now has every permit it needs to begin building. It first began designing flying cars 20 years ago.

“Now that EASA approval is in, we will really start producing the first cars soon,” chief executive Robert Dingemanse told broadcaster NOS. “We then have to test them again to show once more that we meet all the guidelines. That takes about a year and a half.”

PAL-V’s models have faced repeated promises and delays in the past – its first car was cleared in 2020 and it said its first commercial model would follow in 2021, which was then postponed to 2025 and then 2026.

The Liberty, which folds its rotor blades away to drive on the road, costs between €299,000 and €499,000. The first 250 are already sold, NOS reported, and the company has stopped taking orders because it can only build 100 per year.

Around half the buyers are fire brigades, police forces and the military, Dingemanse said. The rest are specialists who need to get somewhere fast, plus a handful of wealthy private owners. Apart from the Dutch fire brigade, almost all of them are foreign.

Don’t expect one over your street
The bad news for anyone dreaming of skipping national traffic jams is that the flying car is likely going nowhere in the Netherlands for regular people, no matter how rich you are.

It has to follow the same rules as any aircraft, and can only take off and land at around 20 small airstrips nationwide. “You can’t just fly anywhere,” Delft University aviation professor Jacco Hoekstra told NOS. “And Dutch airspace is pretty full.”

Aviation expert Joris Melkert said the Netherlands has a perfectly good road network, and that unlike a country like Norway, where getting across a fjord in a hurry can be impossible, “a flying car is not crucial here.”