I know it says ‘car’ on the masthead of this website. Not bike, skateboard or freestyle armchair, and certainly not ekranoplan. But I hope that you will forgive the diversity.

Pictured above is a ‘flying ferry’ – a description that is, I suppose, correct and, unlike ‘flying car’, one that I’m prepared to accept (on grounds of general excitement, anyway).

Brittany Ferries is looking into a ground-effect concept that could have this battery-electric Seaglider (a very slick name) carrying 50-150 people across the Channel by 2028.

Regent, the US start-up behind the technology, reckons the Seaglider could do up to 180mph, thus taking it from Portsmouth to Cherbourg in as little as 40 minutes.

Another name used for this type of craft is ekranoplan, from when the Soviet navy dabbled with it in the second half of the last century. And if you want to look at your watch and realise it was hours ago that you last did, documentaries on this are worth spending an evening with online.

Not quite hydrofoil, nor boat, nor aeroplane, the ekranoplan, Seaglider, GEV or whatever generates enough lift to put a layer of high-pressure air under its wings, on which it then rides. A bit like a skirtless hovercraft.

But the reason we can’t board one at Dover already is that they weren’t without issue when the Soviets tried them, so I doubt they will be now.

Even once you beat the obstacle of introducing intricate corrosive mechanicals to salt, ekranoplans dislike choppy seas; and launching what’s effectively an aircraft that can’t change altitude into the busiest shipping lane in the world at nearly 200mph will take some forethought.

And if you think this just sounds like the sort of wheeze a company might come up with when it wants its name and logo emblazoned across the media just as people consider booking a driving holiday, I think that’s an incredibly cynical outlook. And by the way, have you noticed that Brittany Ferries is offering car ferry crossings for as little as £180 in late August, when Brest and Giverny will be particularly picturesque?

But whether this comes to fruition or not, I’m excited by the fact that we’re thinking about different ways to get around. When I was a kid, you could take a hovercraft to France and a Concorde to the US, but now you can do neither. So the Seaglider proposal and the fact United Airlines recently agreed to buy supersonic airliners are reasons to be excited.

My only beef is staying realistic about what the emperor is wearing.

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Last month, Norway’s former environment minister Erik Solheim tweeted about “China’s autonomous electric train that doesn’t need traditional tracks”, saying it was “incredible… can go anywhere”. Erik, mate, they’ve invented a bus.

And Airspeeder recently launched the “world’s first flying racing car”, which isn’t a term the Air Accidents Investigation Branch used when reporting on how, at Goodwood in 2019, one of the firm’s unmanned prototypes climbed out of control to 8000ft into Gatwick’s holding-pattern airspace before crashing 40 metres from houses in Chichester.

So while I’m hyped for new things, I do wonder if the humble car (not the helicopter kind) will be the way we make our way around for some time to come. But if not? I will see you on the Seaglider’s first voyage.

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