“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” The line associated with tech investor Peter Thiel was a crack about how the future turned out: We imagined soaring over traffic and got a new way to complain about it via Twitter/X.

Now engineers are building machines that can do the flying part. But some of the most promising designs have more in common with a small helicopter than with the car in your driveway. They’re electric aircraft that take off and land vertically. Some are being built for passengers who want to book a ride. Others are meant for people who want to own and fly one themselves.

The air taxi is the version most people may encounter first. Companies such as Archer and Joby are developing aircraft that can carry a pilot and several passengers on short trips. Think of a ride from a designated landing site to an airport or across a congested city. The aircraft would fly between established locations, with someone else at the controls.

The U.S. Department of Transportation selected eight projects spanning 26 states to test next-generation aircraft and how they could fit into American airspace. Los Angeles offers one of the more visible examples of what the industry hopes to do: Organizers of the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics selected Archer as their official air taxi provider. The plan calls for flights serving key venues, though a partnership announcement is still a long way from a published flight schedule.

Personal flight is a different proposition. One company, AirCar, is developing a two-seat electric aircraft with a target base price of $99,000, along with a smaller single-seat model targeted at $49,000. The company says it has flown full-size prototypes and logged more than 1,000 piloted test flights across its development program. It has taken reservations for the two-seater, but the prices are targets, and reservations tell us how many people are interested, not how many aircraft have been delivered.

The Federal Aviation Administration has also modernized its light-sport rules, expanding the kinds of aircraft that can qualify and updating rules for sport pilots. That gives manufacturers of some smaller aircraft another path to market. What an owner would need to fly a particular model still depends on how the aircraft is classified and what operating rules apply.

The next test is what happens after takeoff. Can these aircraft cover a useful distance with enough battery power in reserve? How much noise will people hear when flights pass over the same neighborhood all day? And where will the aircraft land, recharge and go for maintenance? Those details will determine whether a flight saves time once you count the trip to and from the landing site.

The first taste of the flying-car future may be a short ride you book to the airport. The more ambitious version—the one where you buy an aircraft for the price of a luxury SUV and fly it yourself—is still being tested. For now, the milestones to watch are approved aircraft, regular passenger service and actual customer deliveries.

Fact-check notes, separate from the article: The federal test program spans 26 states; LA28 selected Archer as its official air taxi provider; the personal aircraft prices and flight counts are AirCar’s own figures; and the FAA has updated its light-sport rules. US Department of Transportation