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Enlarge / Joby Aviation's electric aircraft takes off for a test flight. (credit: Joby Aviation)

Over the last two days, two companies have outlined radically different—yet oddly familiar—visions for the future of air travel.

One idea is built around a buzzing network of small, electrically powered vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft ferrying commuters in and out of dense urban areas, a tantalizing vision prophesied since at least the 1950s. The other vision bets on a fleet of a few dozen supersonic airliners jetting well-heeled travelers from one global city to another, a dream that many thought died with the Concorde some 20 years ago.

Oddly, it's the flying cars that seem closer to reality this time. Yesterday, Joby Aviation announced another step in its plan to bring eVTOL services to the masses. The company has signed an agreement with two real estate companies, Neighborhood Property Group and Reef Technology (the latter is a sort of WeWork for non-office commercial real estate), to allow rooftop access to Reef’s 5,000 parking garages in the US and Europe. By comparison, there are about 5,600 US heliports, which are managed by a patchwork of owners.

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  When Akio Toyoda, the president of Toyota Motor Corporation, wanted to demonstrate to Japanese customers that hydrogen power is safe, he decided to convert a Corolla to use H2 in an internal combustion engine and then entered the car in an endurance racing series. He was even one of the drivers. [credit: Toyota ]

In late May, a special Toyota Corolla entered the track at Fuji Speedway in Japan to take part in a 24-hour race. Unlike the other cars in the race, this one was hydrogen-powered. But it didn't use a fuel cell like the Mirai sedan; instead, this car's three-cylinder engine was converted to burn the gas instead of burning gas(oline). The driver line-up for the car showed why. Among the racers listed was a "Morizo," better known to the world as Akio Toyoda, Toyota Motor Company's president.

No pressure, then.

"The reason for competing in a 24-hour endurance race is that simply lasting three or five hours is not enough. You have to have done the preparation to last for 24 hours," Toyoda said in the weeks before the race. There's no doubt about it—completing a 24-hour race is no easy thing, and the crucible of racing will often reveal problems that engineers don't encounter on the test bench.