Flying cars... *rolls eyes*

[BuzzKillington]

Am I the only one annoyed with this idea?

I can't believe companies out there think they're going somewhere by dropping hundreds of millions into trying to make an idea that will never. ever. catch on.

They try advertising them as some kinda convenient mode of transportation as if you're driving to work and hit a traffic jam. "oh golly, I guess I'll just press the go-go gadget vertical takeoff and hover over this mess. I'm sure the amount of thrust needed to do this wont disturb any of the cars I'm hovering over. Oh damn, a failed engine! Sorry about landing on your car and killing your family... maybe you should have been hovering like me.

People can't drive as it is let alone maneuver between buildings while avoiding other "flying cars."

This cars would be hideous. Outrageously expensive and inconvenient. They would be nothing more than a novelty item so even though I'm sure there are plenty out there that are rich enough and dumb enough to own one, the company would still never see a red cent in profits.

Obviously the idea would be to avoid traffic, avoid the airport drama, being able to travel from point a to point be, land, drive to a gas station, fill up, drive up to your house and pull it into your vacation house's garage but again, it wont work.

Don't get me started on self-driven car highway networks! lol

[TheGreatSatan]

I'm kind of pissed. These were promised to us in the 80's, but they never came through. The cost of the cars and training everyone to use them, setting up a traffic system, changing old laws and making new ones just for these cars. . . . .

It gets to be a huge endevour

[mDust]

We've had the technology to make a car fly for 2 or 3 decades now, but we still don't have the technology to make them idiot-proof...the issues you both raise are exactly why they haven't been produced. The US government requires a pilots license to drive one. And that's on top of other regulations that make the whole driving a flying car unfeasible, which in turn makes manufacturing flying cars unfeasible. It's a catch 22 just like alternative fuel vehicles. You won't find many hydrogen or natural gas vehicles on the road because there's nowhere to fuel them up...and there's nowhere to fuel them up because there aren't enough vehicles on the road to support any kind of business. If there isn't a market for something, companies aren't going to waste their time. However, if companies were smart enough to take care of both issues at once, then they could cultivate their own markets in large cities and use the profits to expand their market further.

[x88x]

Personally, I would love to have a flying car. ...on the other hand, having millions of flying cars throughout the country would be a logistical nightmare. The problem with tech like flying cars and (since you brought it up) self-driving highway networks, is that there are two hurdles. 1) Developing the tech to make it work correctly, reliably, and foolproof..ly?, and 2) getting people to trust it to do its job. Take airplane autopilots, for example. The autopilot in a modern commercial jet can (and I would bet in most cases does) handle everything from takeoff to touchdown, and probably taxiing on the runway too. Millions of flights come and go every day using these systems with an incredibly low number of problems. But, no passenger would get on the plane if there weren't a pilot on it. Doesn't matter that he might not actually do anything, they just don't trust the technology to do its job. It's the same thing with these things, it's not as much a problem of making them idiot-proof, it's a problem of getting the general public to trust that they're idiot-proof.

[knowledgegranted]

I wouldn't mind them, and when cars first went into mass production, it was said that no one would drive them.

When the wright brothers made a "flying machine" everyone thought they were crazy.

No I don't think you are crackpots, but just read:

http://amasci.com/freenrg/arrhenus.html

[BuzzKillington]

The way auto-pilot cars would work would be by following sensors set into the roads. If that's the case, what happens when someones couch falls off a trailer or a car breaks down or any other obstacle one would only be able to avoid by controlling the vehicle themselves?

I don't see auto-pilot cars or flying cars ever working not to mention, as brought up earlier, the entire world would have to be re-done. You think it will happen? I'll continue to laugh at the ideas because in these cases, they're stupid and will never work. haha

[x88x]

The way auto-pilot cars would work would be by following sensors set into the roads. If that's the case, what happens when someones couch falls off a trailer or a car breaks down or any other obstacle one would only be able to avoid by controlling the vehicle themselves?

Distance sensors, obstacle sensors, etc. There's not much that a person does in controlling a vehicle that can't be done just as well if not better with current technology. Check out the DARPA Urban Challenge if you don't believe me. The problem is, and has always been, getting the technology cheap enough, reliable enough, and foolproof enough, that a car manufacturer will actually put it in a production car.

I don't see auto-pilot cars or flying cars ever working not to mention, as brought up earlier, the entire world would have to be re-done. You think it will happen? I'll continue to laugh at the ideas because in these cases, they're stupid and will never work. haha

That's been said for many things over the years that are now commonplace. Just saying.

[Zephik]

And you thought ground-cars got bad mileage! lol

[Diamon]

As Zephik said I'm mostly concerned about the amount of fuel needed to keep a car hovering. Keeping something weighing 1-2 tons in the air constantly, even without any forward movement, takes a lot of power. And besides I think that if we're gonna keep multiplying we won't have any room for cars anyway.

[x88x]

And you thought ground-cars got bad mileage! lol

As Zephik said I'm mostly concerned about the amount of fuel needed to keep a car hovering. Keeping something weighing 1-2 tons in the air constantly, even without any forward movement, takes a lot of power.

This is a good point, though it actually takes more fuel to hover instead of actually moving forward, since 100% of the lift is being generated by the engines, not by the wings or body of the vehicle. This would probably be another factor keeping them in the realm of either very expensive or short-distance. I would expect to see tech like this implemented first in emergency vehicles, since cost of running is much less important for them than getting to the destination quickly.

And besides I think that if we're gonna keep multiplying we won't have any room for cars anyway.

Actually, that started me thinking..(always a dangerous thing ).. If we develop a fast for of transportation that does not require a fixed infrastructure (ex, roads, rails, etc), then people could conceivably spread out over much more of the usable land area. The only reason I don't live out in the middle of nowhere is because I don't want to have a 3 hours commute every day. But if I could cut that 3 hours to 30 minutes by flying, and I could actually live where I want, and still work where I want. The population crowding problem seen in so many places in the world is not a problem of there not being enough land area, it's a problem of everyone needing to be in the same place. If we could make it so that they don't all need to be in that same place all of the time, at least some of that problem could be fixed. Sort of like back when suburbs started becoming popular; the introduction of the car meant that people could live further out from the city, but still get into the city every day to work. I think the same thing could happen on a much larger scale if something like personal flying cars became a technological and economically feasible reality.