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Thread: China Bails Out Another GA Longtime Start-up

  1. #1
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    China Bails Out Another GA Longtime Start-up

    Greely, a Chinese corporate behemoth has bought Terrafugia the flying car guys. Greely owns Volvo and Lotus among many familiar brand names. They want to get into the the flying car and driverless car business which they believe could be viable and a reality in the next 25 years.

    Terrafugia, which has been around for 11 years with nothing to show for it in terms of no aircraft production and no aircraft ever delivered is damn lucky to be bought out instead of filing Chapter11. Now they can pay back the $10 million in VC money they pissed away on a novelty Jetsons vehicle they actually believed had a viable market....for $278,000 a piece. I certainly took notice that they have not exhibited at Osh for the past 3 years.

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    Cary's Avatar
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    All of the flying car idioms have been less than successful, even when they've built an actual flying version. The Terrafugia is probably as "successful" as any--at least, it's not necessary to trailer part of it, a la Moulten Taylor's Aerocar, when on the ground. But it's still a bastard design, being neither a very good car nor a very good airplane. And that's the story of all of them, that they all have fallen way short of being good at either. Even for those who have the excess money to buy that sort of toy, paying more than a quarter mil for something that drives like a grocery cart and flies like a semi-aerodynamic brick is hard to justify.

    Cary
    "I have slipped the surly bonds of earth...,
    put out my hand and touched the face of God." J.G. Magee

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    Cary has struck at the heart of the problem with "flying cars."
    The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Floatsflyer View Post
    Greely, a Chinese corporate behemoth has bought Terrafugia the flying car guys. Greely owns Volvo and Lotus among many familiar brand names. They want to get into the the flying car and driverless car business which they believe could be viable and a reality in the next 25 years.

    Terrafugia, which has been around for 11 years with nothing to show for it in terms of no aircraft production and no aircraft ever delivered is damn lucky to be bought out instead of filing Chapter11. Now they can pay back the $10 million in VC money they pissed away on a novelty Jetsons vehicle they actually believed had a viable market....for $278,000 a piece. I certainly took notice that they have not exhibited at Osh for the past 3 years.
    Lucky Greely is bailing these guys out. Maybe the US investors will get a little money back. IMO, Greely is paying for a dream, not a product or even worthwhile IP. Terrafuga's whole business model reminded me of Moller with better funding.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Kyle Boatright View Post
    Terrafuga's whole business model reminded me of Moller with better funding.
    And a POC that at least flew but they seemed to be pleased with just this achievement alone and did not move forward(but kept taking deposits). As if they were saying, "see, we did it, now stop being pessimistic about us, we're moving on to the next Buck Rogers flying car on our computer screen."

    The Terrifugia owners are all MIT grads. They all should immediately go home and tell their parents how sorry they are for wasting the $350,000 they spent on each of their educations.

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    Why would they ever apologize? They've made a fine living off of what they're doing!
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    DaleB's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Floatsflyer View Post
    The Terrifugia owners are all MIT grads. They all should immediately go home and tell their parents how sorry they are for wasting the $350,000 they spent on each of their educations.
    They're doing what MIT people do... spend research grants.

    I kid, I'm sure there are thousands of MIT grads gainfully and productively employed. There is, however, certainly no shortage of them engaged in the expenditure of investor and tax dollars for what would more honestly be billed as pure research. Nothing wrong with that, until you start trying to convince people to give you money for pure research by pretending there's a business there.
    Measure twice, cut once...
    scratch head, shrug, shim to fit.

    Flying an RV-12. I am building a Fisher Celebrity, slowly.

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    Ever work with an MIT grad? You would know within the first 30 seconds because that is the first thing they will say. True story......

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    You say it's the first thing they say, but how would you know of others who didn't tell you about it?

    I've been on a jury burdened with a prosecutor who compulsively mentioned his degree from MIT every few minutes. The MIT grads I know don't do that. Perhaps the grads you know are exhibiting some perverse form of PTSD as a result of their accomplishment, and can't keep from picking at it. I tell a couple I know who have a master's and a PhD from MIT between them that they are slow learners. Four years ought to be enough time to learn it hurts.

    Probably one of those guys at TerraFugia should have gone on to Sloan School and studied business for a while. BTW, I've known some MIT grads who founded or co-founded successful companies.

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    You say it's the first thing they say, but how would you know of others who didn't tell you about it?
    STOP MAKING SENSE.

    It's the Internet, for goodness sake!
    The opinions and statements of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.

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