Flying cars imminent?

I was thinking about this...

www.moller.com...

In the last 50 years, we've, as a race, improved A LOT technologically...however, almost in all aspects except for cars. We still don't have hydrogen fuel cell cars...

The link above shows that the cards have been developed for pretty long time now, and they obviously work. The only things in the way are price, practicality, necessity, and legality.

The world would be a mess with flying cars like that - accidents would be probably quadruple the amount of car accidents we have.

So how long do you guys think it'll take for flying cars to become common? Or will flying cars become needed ever?

I'm thinking that in 50 years, flying cars could be somewhat common - planes sure became a lot more common from the 1950s. Still, 50 years might be a little too early...maybe 200 years would be more right? When I think flying cars, I think of anti-gravity machines or magnetic repulsion machines, not gasoline powered ones like the ones in that link, but I doubt those technologies will become prevalent in 50 years.

a howstuffworks link

www.howstuffworks.com...

hm, going by what they said, the m400 could get popular when they become mass produced...maybe we'll really see flying cars in 50 years. GPS and auto pilot should take care of most things.

I agree with you about accidents. If everyone had flying cars it would be tough to control traffic. Even minor fender benders could become serious when a car plummets to the ground.

now that I think more about it:

in about 10 years, hydrogen fuel cells should definetely be used widely. At least they better...or I'll have to invent them myself! They could be used to power the m400.

People would drive the m400 would some launching area, and then directors could direct them into a lane specifically designed to go to a certain area.

For safety, autopilot could have some cruise control thin that would keep your vehicle like 50 feet from the vehicle in front of you constantly, same vehicles on the side. I think if there is ever flying cars, humans wouldn't be piloting them manually...it'll mostly be autopilots.

Flying cars will just make the world alot more complicated. Think about all the issues there are about driving and road safety. Those problems will just be magnified when you have a vehicle that is more difficult to control because you have more factors to watch for when you operate it.

If flying cars are introduced, there's gonna have to bea way to efficiently and safely control traffic. There's obviously gonna be layers of traffic above and below you, so a wrong turn can prove to be disaterous. How are there gonna be traffic lights and inteersections? We could have there flying pod things that could serve as traffic lights, but given the complexity of the network that would link up the different traffic signals to a database, it really wouldn't be cheap. Besides, it would obviously have to be wireless, so hackers can easily expoit it somehow.

How will you make "roads"? You can maybe align the "roads" in the air with the oneson the ground, but doing that visually would be very difficult of not dangerous. A GPS system to do that would make more sense, but relying on techonology to do anything will just make ourselves more dependent, so if something goes wrong (like a huge EMP blast), then we'd be in big trouble. Even now, us humans have grown so dependent on technology, some of us would go crazy without it.

Wouldn't powering such a machine be really costly? Gas prices are high enough already, and when we need mre of it at a faster rate, it's just gonna cost us more money. Yes, more efficient and economical sources of powering are on the way, but eventually implications will pop up.

Polluttion. Lots of it. The skies will turn black, and the sealevel will rise. Not to mention sound pollution. No one's gonna be alboe to sleep because of all that racket going on outside.

A flying car such as that M400 wont be used int he future.

A flying car such as a car how it is now, except it is able to fly using anti-gravity devices for propulsion, will the the future.

And if not that...then they will be jsut comfy little couch spaces where u can sit on a comfy couch enclosed in a little room, jsut like out of that movei with tom cruise in it...minority report.

[Edited on 9-11-2003 by DaRAGE]

what !!! Traffic problems for flying cars.,,,

it worked for the Jetsons..



Couldn't resist that..


I think that someday we'll have "flying cars" , but not everyone.. just the leaders... you know of the NWO !!

I think the anti-gravity method would work best...however to my knowledge ( which to be honest, could be very little) we are nowhere near producing that sort of technology. I'm sure people thought that the idea of making freeways span the entire US was far too complicated and expensive at the time too. Flying cars may indeed become neccessary as traffic problems in the future are only going to get worse, not better.

especially with terrorists running those flying cars into buldings

as long as huge oil companies have any say in cars hydrogen will not be a reality as a fuel sorce for cars. Think of how much revenue would be lost each year without millions of gas guzzling cars on the road.

Computers will continue to rapidly advance. In 20-30 years computers will have advanced to the point where they could fly a hovering car. At that point, humans will not need to control the car except in the rare case of a computer malfunction.

the best way to defeat those terrorists is to creat hydrogen cars

I think the main thing that will prevent flying cars from being popular is safety...computer bugs and EMP bombs can totally screw up the flying car system.

also, what are they called flying cars? Wouldn't small airplanes that can stay grounded be more correct?

Well, the gas companies cant keep a lid on such things forever.... EVENTUALLY there will be no gas left for them to cheat us out of.

Originally posted by prevx
The world would be a mess with flying cars like that - accidents would be probably quadruple the amount of car accidents we have.

I doubt that on road you have control of front, back, right and left on air up and down.
Probably the accidents will be lower because you will have autopilot available to all by that time.

When you learn how to drive airplanes, a large percentage of your time is devoted to what to do when the fan quits.

In this freak, your options are:

Scream on the way down;

Go down with dignity.

This thing would glide like a safe.

The most sensible thing to do it make it computer powered. Sincr you now have to worry about moving on three axes, mistakes WILL be made and it's gonna be hell if you have a collision up there.

Making everything computer controlled will make us more dependent. We'll only have to know how to operate the computer, and the thing will drive by itself. If the car malfunctions, the driver probably won't know how to control it because he's never done it before.

Policing the skyways will also be a problem. If we have a high speed chase, it's even more dangerous than on the road. The police cars will not only have to dodge other cars, but possibly buildings and other high rise objects.

What will happens to airplanes if flying cars come into place? The cars will probably fly lower than planes, but they still provide a major hazard to any plane that's taking off or landing, especially if there's a whole ton of them flying around. The wake of turbulance of large planes may cause cars in the vicinity to topple over, but I'm not too sure about that, just a theory.

Not good if you have an engine breakdown in midair, or if you run out of gas either...

until they reach 'Overunity' there won't be a hyrogen economy. This means we need to reach a point where it takes less than 1 unit of energy to produce 1 energy unit of hydrogen. Currently it takes around 2 units of energy to produce 1 energy unit of hydrogen.

There is some promising technology that uses Plasma-Arc instead of electrolysis that might achieve this.

Why build the 'sky lanes' all at once? Why not just slowly put them up in heavily conjested areas? Say over just one stretch of highway or one road here and there?... Gradually build up little parts as it becomes more neccessary.
I think we could avoid airplane problems buy banning 'sky lanes' near airports.

Of course one also has to look at the advantages. Sure a flying car may be novel. But are the risks worth the advantages?

If we want to look at the Jetson's for transportation inspiration, I think those tubes are the way to go, those things rock.

I think extensive computer mock ups would have to be done. Create a virtual city with 2,000,000 flying cars flying around and see how well things get managed. I think controlling all these cars in a city would be a greater technological marvel than actually creating the cars themselves.

The risks to traffic issues would be less. I read on howstuffworks.com (I believe that was the source) that if we took the current number of cars, and put them in skyways, instead of on streets, cars would be only as close together as 1 mile apart. There would really be no need to stop, since some lanes could be just for one direction, and intersecting lanes can simply go underneath.