I’ll never understand the eternal hype around “flying cars”. Fuckers out here can hardly drive on a 2d road. Now you want to introduce a third axis on them?
I guarantee that if the general public gets their hands on a real “flying car”, it’ll take about 2 weeks before some drunk idiot commits a mini 9/11.
Drink idiots hit things in cars all the time.
Make the test to acquire your license actually difficult to the skill level required instead of the “you can take two left turns and park shitty, here’s your license” level of difficulty that most states use for road vehicles.
I got my driver’s license when I was 18, after studying for the test and practicing for several months on a learner’s permit.
Now I’m 40. I’ve never been retested. I have completely forgotten what’s on the exam. I’ve developed a whole bunch of bad driving habits, particularly with the advent of smart phones. And nobody is going to challenge my license renewal so long as I can pass an eye exam every 10 years.
The only way flying cars should ever get implemented is if they are 100% automatic.
-
Create automatic taxi (impossible)
-
Create flying taxi (impossible)
Okay, new plan!
- Create automatic flying taxi (should be possible in the next 5-15 years)
Not saying it’s a good idea, but a lot of the complexity surrounding automated driving is actually because you are confined to a 2D space and have to follow roads/road signs. When you can just lift off and adjust verticality to avoid objects all you really need is a way to detect and avoid obstacles and some navigation logic. Landing is probably the most difficult part to automate.
Not super easy but it is actually easier than self-driving cars (which is why almost all of a commercial flight is running on autopilot)
When you can just lift off and adjust verticality to avoid objects
You need to navigate between objects on an additional access. Also, manage speed and trajectory with a changing mass, as you exhaust fuel.
Not rocket science, but its close.
it is actually easier than self-driving cars (which is why almost all of a commercial flight is running on autopilot)
Commercial flight follows lanes of traffic with regular well-regulated flight paths.
One thing that gets helicopters and small engine aircraft pilots in trouble is that they don’t have any of that.
-
Trains and Trams please and thank you
No. Only the promise of a single-person direct-to-destination fee-for-service that ends up being a giant scam.
We will never build mass transit in this country. You can’t make us.
Where America is going to come unstuck is with the electric car.
Either you guys are going to have to build up more electrical infrastructure which you don’t want to do, or you’re going to have to develop public transit options, would you also don’t seem to want to do.
Then the GOP will somehow try and turn it into a political issue (because they are lunatics) and nothing will get done, and then no one will be able to go anywhere because they will be stuck living in a country that is designed for a mode of transit that no longer exists, and no one has bothered to update it in any way. And then your kids are going to overthrow the government because they won’t be able to understand why everyone in Europe can go wherever they want.
A few major metro areas with big finance and tech sectors will get a bunch of pilot programs that cost way too much and never get fully implemented.
Then we’ll get told that the tech is too expensive and we can’t do it.
Meanwhile, China will be building a BRI that moves people at 600 mph from Beijing to Rabat.
