Chinese automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group (Geely) has been given the green light to buy US flying car start-up company Terrafugia.
Terrafugia was founded in 2006 by five graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and in 2012 it launched its first flying car, the Transition, priced at around US$280,000.
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The company unveiled a new vertical lift-off/landing flying car design, called the TF-X, in the following year.
Geely confirmed this week that it plans to have a new flying car prototype available by 2019, which it hopes to begin marketing by 2023. The US is expected to be vehicle’s first market.
Geely is one of China’s most acquisitive vehicle manufacturers, having taken control of Volvo Cars in 2010 and the UK’s London Taxi Company in 2012. This year it acquired a 49% stake in Malaysia’s first car company Proton.
Geely’s initial plan is to further expand Terrafugia’s R&D capabilities, a process which it said it has supported since began in the third quarter of 2017 in anticipation of the acquisition.
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