Currently, the builds look like a 24-foot, 8-inch Bugatti, but with hidden fenders. When parking the jet, the rear stabilizer folds down, cutting two feet from the overall length, or the length of a long-bed pickup. Brown’s creation is more than just an eVTOL. Instead, the Fusion will be incredibly fast on the ground, as well as fully capable of flying.
This quick curiosity came to us from the mind of Greg Brown, a Californian designer who spent time flying F-18s for the US Navy and later flying Boeing 777s for United. . Brown designed the Fusion JC7, born Firenze Lanciare, for nearly 20 years.
When there are four tires on the asphalt, the Firenze will be all-electric, with two Tesla engines totaling 1,000 horsepower, one at the front and one at the rear. 920 pound-feet of torque means the JC7 can accelerate from zero to 60 mph in less than four seconds. The LG Chem battery in its floor also gives the car a 150-mile range.
With its wings outstretched, this plane can generate 2,000 pounds of thrust from two Williams FJ-33 turbofan engines, weighing just 320 pounds. It takes about six seconds to accelerate from zero to 140 mph, and the cruising speed in flight is 520 mph. At this speed, the flying car can fly 750 miles with a fuel tank full of 300 gallons.
The design currently being tested by Corvid Technologies calculates fluid dynamics to determine pitch moments and drag coefficients. The whole thing seems a bit wacky. But Brown is confident it will work. “I showed this design to the Stanford PhDs during their aerospace program and they loved it,” he told Robb Report. “The engines, wings and other components are similar to existing business jets, so it’s not a matter of desire, but of maximizing performance and finding someone willing to develop it.
Currently, Brown predicts the prototype will cost around $20 million to develop, with the jet car costing around $2.5 million after production. Fusion is not just a toy for someone who already owns everything else. Instead, Brown says, it serves a very specific purpose: saving time. Brown envisions a scenario in which a corporate jet flies from Boston to Teterboro and then flies the owner to a meeting in Manhattan.
But when the meeting is over and traffic back to Teterboro is halted, owners can take the open route to LaGuardia and back home, minus taxis, station traffic and other airport delays. Fusion aims to make private flight as efficient as possible.