I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that there's basically no chance that flying cars become a meaning part of life in America in my lifetime (I just turned 40).
Super late to this but I'd take bipedal bots. That's not to say I'm particularly bullish on that idea though. Seems like it might be simpler to build purpose built robots for specific tasks. They'd probably be faster.
I'm not entirely convinced. On one hand for bots you pretty much need AGI which Tesla is near solving. On another hand you need massive battery improvement for flights to move from toy to actually useful. But also there are more than 1 eVTOLS that already been certified for flight.
Bots would admittedly be far more useful in helping with tons of various tasks (I'm sure each task will be a subscription), but eVTOLs would unlock new capability.
Does 'flying car' have its own FAA designation? My assumption is that it would fall under the already existing aircraft types and require the same license to operate.
Not that one. There's zero usable payload, extremely limited range, VFR only, and it's only "legal" is as a Part 103 (ultralight) exception.
This is, essentially, an aviation hobby toy and not remotely practical for anyone even doing a short-hop urban commute as they would be banned in dense urban (class B,C, and D) airspace too.
The aircraft looked sleek in Scott Manley’s video, but knowing it has only 20 mile range with the top speed of 60 mph makes it a little more than a toy.
This seems worse than the Dubai quadcopter taxis in general, but it would be cool in niche situations. I wonder if it can be adapted to land on water with inflatable landing gear.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 45.9 ms ] threadBots would admittedly be far more useful in helping with tons of various tasks (I'm sure each task will be a subscription), but eVTOLs would unlock new capability.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wncRFPd69rg
The future in Back to the Future part 2 was 2015-10-21.
Now we need to get cracking on Mr. Fusion, so we can produce 1.21 GW of power with beer cans and egg cartons.
This is, essentially, an aviation hobby toy and not remotely practical for anyone even doing a short-hop urban commute as they would be banned in dense urban (class B,C, and D) airspace too.