The Americans are at it. Flying cars aren’t just science fiction anymore.
A Massachusetts-based company, Terrafugia Inc. on Monday announced that its prototype flying car has completed its first flight, bringing the company closer to its goal of selling the flying car within the next year. The roadcraft, dubbed the “Transition,” has two seats, four wheels and wings that fold up so it can be driven like a car. Last month, it flew at 1,400 feet for eight minutes. Commercial jets fly at 35,000 feet.
Around 100 people have already put down a $10,000 deposit, a million dollars (Kshs. 83.176 million) in total thus far, to get a Transition when they go on sale, and those numbers will likely rise after Terrafugia introduces the Transition to the public later this week at the New York Auto Show. It’s expected to cost $279,000. And it won’t help if you’re stuck in traffic; the car needs a runway to take off and land.
Now, $289,000 as of the close of the market today is about Kshs. 23 million shillings. Kshs. 23 million shillings is 18 times the profit that listed company Kenya Orchards Limited announced in its 2011 end-year results, can buy about 1,657,586 shares that Kenya Airways is offering in its ongoing rights issue or 81,140 British American Tobacco (BAT) shares as at today’s closing price, Kshs. 286, the 2nd most expensive share on the Nairobi Securities Exchange behind Limuru Tea at Kshs. 400. In terms of packets of unga, that comes to about 193,385 packets of unga, expensively-priced at Kshs. 120 each. As of the last national census, the population of Isiolo County was 143,294 people. Therefore the Kshs. 23 million is enough to give each one of the people a packet of unga and have over 50,000 packets of unga left over.
So Kenyans, what would you rather? To buy a flying car, where there would be no parking space for it anyway, or to feed the people of Isiolo County?
