Late for work? Imagine skipping the subway and instead heading to your local "vertiport," where you can hop into an aircraft the size of an SUV that runs on electricity and works pretty much like an elevator.

Get in, punch in your destination, and off you go. Alone.

It may sound like an episode of "The Jetsons," but electric air taxis are a form of transportation that is coming to Dubai in just a few months. And investors hope American cities aren't much far behind.

Insiders call the new breed of flying machine "e-VTOLs," (pronounced "EE-VEE- talls"), an acronym for "electric vertical take off and landing."

We want it to be on-demand. You push a button and a car will pick you up and take you to a vertiport and the next aircraft will leave in minutes.

Exotic prototypes are being designed, built and flight-tested by companies ranging from Airbus to startups bankrolled by tech billionaires such as Google co-founder Larry Page.