Larry Page’s Secret Project Revealed: Flying Cars

The second “Back to the Future” promised us flying cars by 2015. That deadline has passed, but the dream may still come to fruition, albeit a little late, thanks to Google co-founder Larry Page.

Page, the CEO of Google parent company Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOG), has funded two startups working on flying cars — backing Zee.Aero to the tune of $100 million and investing an undisclosed amount into another flying car startup named Kitty Hawk, according to Bloomberg.

Zee.Aero has hired aerospace designers and engineers from NASA, Boeing and SpaceX to help build a single-seater prototype that looks like a small conventional plane and another prototype with propellers down the sides, per Bloomberg.

Zee.Aero is conducting test flights at an airport an hour’s drive away Mountain View, California. The company is headquartered at a 30,000-square-foot space in Mountain View.

Page initially restricted the Zee.Aero staffers to the first floor of the building and turned the second floor into his own personal retreat, including a bedroom, bathroom, expensive paintings and one of SpaceX’s first rocket engines gifted from Elon Musk. Page was known as GUS, the guy upstairs, until the company needed to expand into the upstairs space. Zee.Aero now employs almost 150 people.

Kitty Hawk is developing designs for flying cars separately from Zee.Aero, but maintains offices about a half-mile away. Kitty Hawk’s personal aircraft looks like a quadcopter drone built, in part, by engineers from AeroVelo. The startup’s president is Sebastian Thrun, according to 2015 business filings obtained by Bloomberg. Thrun was one of the initial members of Google’s self-driving car program and the founder of Google X.

It is unknown if the companies are developing personal aircraft for the masses or for billionaires who like cool toys. It is worth noting that this is Page’s personal investment and is not associated with Google’s moonshot projects, which include self-driving cars, high-altitude balloons and delivering its own wireless service. Some investors have said Google is spreading itself too thin and spending too much on “moonshot” projects at the expense of Google’s core businesses. Last year, the company company slowed down hiring and conducted an internal audit, taking a hard look at costs, revenue and accounting.

According to Bloomberg, about a dozen companies around the world, from startups to major aerospace companies, are working on prototypes for flying cars.

“Over the past five years, there have been these tremendous advances in the under­lying technology,” Mark Moore, an aeronautical engineer who designed advanced aircraft at NASA, told Bloomberg. “What appears in the next 5 to 10 years will be incredible.”

Source: Silicon Valley Business Journal, Gina Hall
Photo: Larry Page, co-founder and chief executive officer at Google Inc., is investing in two flying car projects, according to Bloomberg. (David Paul Morris, Bloomberg)