To play devil's advocate: it's a flying car in the sense of "a small enclosed powered vehicle that takes a few passengers from A to B without a guide track, only it flies instead of drives" not "a normal car that can also fly". Just like "electronic books" replicate the basic functionality of (traditional) books, but don't use the same methods.
Unless it is significantly cheaper to operate or quieter, I don't understand the benefits of these new vehicles/ form factor.
Maybe the hope is that cities will not regulate them, but I am not sure why they would. Please enlighten me if there something else obvious I missed. If both Boeing and Airbus are working on it, there must be something else.
Also much easier to fly I imagine.
The Uber Elevate white paper probably has a lot more info: https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf/