Flying cars in Minnesota? ‘Jetson's law’ could pave the way

["THE JETSONS" THEME SONG PLAYING] SINGER: Meet George Jetson.

CATHY WURZER: Some of us can sing that theme song by heart, by the way. There are a bunch of new laws that go into effect today in Minnesota. One of them is called "the Jetsons law" after the 1960s Space Age cartoon. The law includes provisions for the use of flying cars.

You heard that right. It makes Minnesota the second state, after New Hampshire, to establish regulations for these vehicles of the future. One company played a crucial role in helping make this law a reality.

Samson Sky, the creators of a flying sports car-- they're based in Oregon but provided insights to Minnesota lawmakers about the industry. Their CEO, Sam Bousfield, is on the line. Hey, Sam, how are you?

SAM BOUSFIELD: Doing great. Doing great.

CATHY WURZER: Good. I have a lot of questions. You call this a "roadable aircraft." Really, what is that exactly?

SAM BOUSFIELD: Oh, I know. In some cases, some of the flying cars we have are capable of driving on the ground but maybe not as efficiently or as fast as a car might be. So if you call it a flying car, everybody a flying car, it may not fit the bill.

But "roadable aircraft" just means that it's an airplane that can be utilized also on the road. And so I like "flying car" better. If you want to call it a flying car, I'm happy with that.

CATHY WURZER: OK. So you could use it on a public highway as a motor vehicle. But what is the point of flying this thing?

SAM BOUSFIELD: Well, for one thing, it cuts down your time between-- say want to go to a city, oh, 200, 500 miles away, something like that. And you have to travel north half that distance and then head east, say, to go the rest of that distance.

A flying car takes you straight. It takes you from point to point. And so you save a lot of time and money and troubles in your flying and driving so that you can get to places faster.

CATHY WURZER: OK. So what might be the state of the flying car industry right now? This feels like this is kind of a budding, perhaps a budding concern, maybe.

SAM BOUSFIELD: Absolutely. Several cars-- flying car makers-- are ready to begin production. Samson, our company, has reservations in, oh, over 57 countries worldwide and all 50 states, including Minnesota, that will benefit from this new law in the immediate future.

It may be a while before flying cars are commonplace, but I feel they will become more and more popular when people see the advantage of travel at 160 miles per hour from wherever they are to wherever they want to be.

CATHY WURZER: Well, of course, as you know, there are some people who really shouldn't even be driving cars on the road just because they're so bad. So I'm assuming that you'd have to be a licensed pilot, obviously, to have something like this so you know what the heck you're doing up there in the sky.

SAM BOUSFIELD: Oh, absolutely. And getting a pilot's license is not as easy as getting a driver's license. There's a bit more to it. But once you're there, I've found that it makes you a better driver as well. So hopefully this will encourage more people to learn to fly, which is very fun, and use the vehicle as it should be-- driving and flying-- and then become better drivers as well.

CATHY WURZER: And by the way, how far up can you get with this particular aircraft? What's the altitude?

SAM BOUSFIELD: For us, it's about 16,000 feet, which is below where you have airliners or things of that nature flying around. But usually people fly 13,000 feet or below that, 13,000 elevation above sea level. And that's because the air gets thin past that point, and you need supplemental oxygen, a little oxygen tank and a little cannula, nose thing, to breathe up that high.

CATHY WURZER: So I'm curious. When I saw this bill pass, I thought, what the heck? I mean, why would Minnesota be a place where you wanted to push forward this legislation?

SAM BOUSFIELD: Well, there is no clear path for registering flying cars within the state for road use. And the foresight of the Minnesota government has made that possible.

CATHY WURZER: All right. So what else would need to happen legally to make these things a reality?

SAM BOUSFIELD: Well, right now, as far as I can tell, just the registration is what's important. And Minnesota's done an awesome job with that.

Legislation like this can take many years to accomplish. And we were honored to work with Minnesota to be proactive and set a good example for other states. We want to promote the industry as a whole.

CATHY WURZER: Curious because obviously you know that there are now self-driving cars. That's kind of cool, but they've kind of run into some issues in terms of safety. What's the safety of these flying cars at this point?

SAM BOUSFIELD: Right. So I can speak to ours. We have an optional parachute for the vehicle, in case you do run out of gas. If you're in the car and you're on the road and you run out of gas, you pull over, and you call AAA or a friend or something to get yourself back on the road again.

But if you're in the air and you made that mistake, that's a more serious thing. You're then a glider, and you have-- you're trained. You can glide down to a landing at many of the airports around. There's almost always an airport within reach.

But if there's not, or if you're concerned about it, you can always pull the parachute and drop down as a parachutist to the ground. And that has saved many, many lives.

CATHY WURZER: And hopefully not hit anything on the way down when you get there. How many flying cars are out there right now?

SAM BOUSFIELD: Well, we have the one flying prototype that's out and flying. And there's several others that have flown their prototypes and are getting ready for production. I think the next year or so, we'll see a lot more vehicles on the sky and in the-- in the air, in the sky, and on the ground. But it will be a little bit of time before I think you're going to see many, many flying cars around.

CATHY WURZER: OK.

SAM BOUSFIELD: One of the things--

CATHY WURZER: So--

SAM BOUSFIELD: --that's nice, though. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

CATHY WURZER: No, go ahead. Go ahead.

SAM BOUSFIELD: Well, one of the things that's nice is it promotes the birth of a new means of transportation to allow point-to-point travel. That's saving Minnesota residents a huge amount of time.

And the foresight is great because this takes a long time for different states to get them enacted. And without that in place, it's difficult to bring something new like this in as a new product.

CATHY WURZER: All right. Well, Sam, I appreciate your time. You painted a picture for us which is quite interesting. Thank you very much.

SAM BOUSFIELD: You bet. Thanks for having me on, Cathy.

CATHY WURZER: Sam Bousfield is the CEO of Samson Sky. That's a flying car company who helped pass a new law that goes into effect today in the state of Minnesota.