Investors In China Could Help Terrafugia In The American Market And Could Also Lead To A New Marketplace On Mainland China

One of the more unusual light sport aircraft under development is the Terrafugia flying car. A couple of prototypes have been produced but as of yet it has not matured to the point of being brought to the market. Now this company is looking for international support.

According to the South China Morning Post, Massachusetts-based Terrafugia is seeking strategic partners on the mainland to help fund its plan to put its flying car on the streets and in the air by 2016.

Terrafugia co-founder and chief executive Carl Dietrich, visiting the mainland last month, said he was looking for equity investors as strategic partners for the first time. After meeting government economic development groups, officials and potential investors, Dietrich said they were interested to know how flying cars might work on the mainland and what kind of timeframe he was looking at.

"We have been talking to private equity funds, government funds and individual companies that have similar business interest," Dietrich said after visiting cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Wuxi. "What ideally we would like to do is to get two of those three groups together."

He said the company, seeking to raise $30 million in its fifth round of financing, had attracted some serious interest from Chinese investors.

According to the report, Dietrich said "The general aviation market is brand new [on the mainland] and the space just started to open to private aviation. People are curious about how long it will take to bring the products like Terrafugia's flying car to China. This is one of the concerns, but we think that in the long run, there is fantastic growth potential."

The funds would be used to support the delivery of Transition, which made its first public flight at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh last year, and to develop the next-generation prototype, the TF-X.

According the report in the South China Morning Post, Dietrich said Terrafugia had received some pre-orders for the Transition, priced at $279,000, and production was ramping up in order to be able to make deliveries in 2016. The company reported to the Post  that it had received $30 million in pre-orders, which each required a $10,000 deposit.

Gao Yuanyang, a director of the general aviation industry research Centre at Beihang University, said the mainland was opening up its airspace, but it was a step-by-step process that would take time.

"Even for those certified private aircraft, it's now very difficult to enter China because of the strict management rules," Gao said. "It will be more difficult for new products like flying cars to get an approval."

(Image provided by Terrafugia)

FMI: www.terrafugia.com