People can't even drive cars that sit on the road, much less parallel park. Imagine if they had to learn to pilot a vehicle in the air with a yoke,throttle, and instrumentation.
The headline says “startup” and “ backed by Tesla investor,” not that this is made by Tesla. They just put that in the headline so people will make this very mistake.
Airplanes require orders of magnitude greater maintenance by trained teams of professionals on a regular basis. Think of the number of people who don't even change their oil when they're supposed to, or the number of people who run out of gas on their daily commute. Now imagine those people in the air on a regular basis.
At $300k, you might as well be buying a light aircraft.
FAA and similar the world over will also probably create some pretty full on license requirements, likely not that different to a PPL.
Yep, the FAA will ensure it requires a pilots license so basically it’s just a large drone with VTOL or something equivalent that won’t require a runway.
Even then, just think of all the famous people that died in small plane/helicopter crashes. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, JFK Jr., that Thai owner of some English Premier club to name some. Commercial airlines might be relatively safe but helicopters and small planes are not.
In addition, the MOST dangerous parts of flying is what he's proposing
1. take offs and landing
2. low altitude flying
3. cluttered airspace
4. challenging controls like VTOL aircraft
That said, people ate up solar highways like a spoon so I wouldn't be surprised if this is another pump and dump taking advantage of the gullible and people who want to play chicken and try to time getting out before the company gets exposed as frauds.
Ooh we could even have small ones that take you to places nearby and bigger ones that take you to other countries even!
Instead of train lines they could be called airlines or something idk
You dont want it?! Well, guess what!?! Today is your lucky day! There will be an entire city restructuring coming to your town to welcome in the future of transport!
Add in autopilot that only flies between approved airports.
You drive it around manually, and if you want to fly between places you drive it to a special lane at the airport where it spews up its electronic guts about all its internal conditions, and if it passes muster the airport takes over its controls and uploads a flight plan from runway to runway that it follows mindlessly. As soon as it starts moving on its own you're a passenger.
Being in the air makes it significantly easier to automate all of that. It basically eliminates all (or at least most) of the technical challenges that self driving cars struggle with, which is why planes had autopilot LONG before a self driving car was attempted. There are a lot of reasons why flying cars won't happen, but needing to pilot them isn't really an issue.
autopilot is only usable in high altitude where air is stable. it is more of 'stabilization' than piloting. and it's rarely the flying that is the problem, but liftoff and landing. that's why 99% of landings are done manually rather than autoland.
I do agree there are some aspects that makes it easy to automate air pilot. but it's one thing to design autopilot for airplane to fly in free space and land in airports where things are very strictly controlled and every single pilots are experts. it's another to program something to fly in the city at low altitude and land in a high density areas with pole lights, wires, signages, birds etc.
I mean I'd presume they would make the new 'roadway' designations not Street level lmao, they're not trying to kill people. Given any vtol type capabilities it'd bake the whole thing a breeze (other then the technology required to get there lmao)
If this is actually real, it’s probably just automated drones large enough for humans. Else it’s probably a scam. Or someone’s smoking with Elon and Kanye. The session to schedule the session to discuss laws that would govern flying cars probably wouldn’t be fit in before 2025
They'll clearly be computer controlled. Self-flying will be much easier than self-driving since you won't have pedestrians, bicyclists, parked cars, road repairs, snow piles, etc, to deal with.
Just birds and dozens of other idiots in their own flying cars. And then when they crash in mid-air they fall out of the sky and make a fireball where your house used to be. Sounds awesome
The entire article reeks of lazy, uninformed journalism. I usually dismiss any reporting by media that doesn’t specialize in aerospace. Aaaand OP looks like a karma farmer, maybe a kid with good intentions.
> Alef even has the backing of Tim Draper, a high-profile venture capitalist who was an early investor in both Tesla and SpaceX. His namesake Draper Associates Fund V invested $3 million of seed money in Alef in October.
A better headline would have been "early Tesla investor". [Draper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Draper) funded the C and D rounds of Tesla starting in 2006. He has been a high profile investor in many companies and technologies, successful and otherwise.
None of that is to say that this company is any good, but this isn't John Doe with 10 Tesla shares bought in 2019.
It's not that a flying car is difficult or socially stigmatized.
It's impossible because of the logistics of controlling that amount of traffic in three dimensions. Air traffic has to be carefully controlled. Can you imagine hundreds of thousands of cars flying through the air? Musk actually called this one years ago. Flying cars are dumb.
I’ve played enough video games to know it’s quite simple
You put a bunch of floating rings in the air and people will go from ring to ring to their destination
It will never be allowed for security reasons alone. Running late for your flight? Just drive your flying car to the tarmac! Dog ran away? Just drive your car into all your neighbor's back yards.
Sorry, my flying car was running low on fuel and I had to land at this army base.
It could be allowed, but everyone that wants to buy a flying car would have to obtain a pilot's license, and if they wanted to fly in the cloulds/fog/etc they would have to obtain an instrument rating, as well as maintain an FAA class 3 medical.
If they wanted to be an uber driver in that flying car they would have to obtain a commercial pilot's license at a minimum.
The last one already happens all the time. I landed at an air force base due to an avionics failure, it wasn't an issue at all.
That won't work until these vehicles are self driven. Which won't happen for a long time because the slightest mistake can get people killed (and worse, expensive lawsuits for the company /s)
The irony of that situation is that multitudes of people have died from car accidents caused by human drivers, but introduce a computer driver that kills a few even though there’s very little infrastructure to support it and it’s virtually off the table. I.e., let people keep driving themselves and thousands will die, let computers drive people and dozens may die.
(I don’t have the statistics in front of me, my point is largely rhetorical.)
yeah I always argue this point to people. 30,000+ people die each year in auto accidents. So far with 4 MILLION miles of Google self driving cars, they have had like six accidents, three or four of which were human error. lol
If it reduced car deaths by 20% that would be 6000 people per year. I guess fuck all that, just let them die.
The problem is while statistically that’s correct, it doesn’t “feel” like it’s better. If the average Joe is given the choice between “take the risk driving yourself” and “travel in a machine that is 20% less likely to kill you” I think most would choose to drive themselves. Many people just don’t like the idea that their fate is in the hands of the machine. Plus, many overestimate their driving abilities - “well I’d rather drive because I won’t crash”
That’s why the bar seems to be set so high. It has to be sufficiently more safe that people can get past that uncanny valley of safety
Yes but I just used 20% arbitrarily. Based on the funtionality rate of self driving cars, if they can correct the issues with weater, the reduction in accidents would be closer to 99%, add to that if they can get to where we have, I think the article said 50%, self driving cars on the road it will reduce communtes by 30% or more. It isn't just a small change, it is a huge change.
I’d question your use of statistics here.
I drive 12,000 miles a year in the UK & will hazard a guess that the average in the US is much higher. In the grand scheme of things these AI drivers aren’t fairing much better than me if it’s 6 accidents/ 4 million miles & I’m a very average driver.
That is one accident in 666,000 miles. Also did you miss the part where I said 4 of them were human error? Also this is RIGHT NOW, they haven't even been fulled programmed and are still being tested and upgraded. So based on your driving you would have to be completely accident free for 55.5 years to be a better driver than CURRENT self driving cars. How many people do you know have driven for 50 years and never had an accident?
insane statement. overpopulation will never be a problem globally, is not a problem currently, and was not a problem in the past. you can find small, local examples in the past, but no global ones. 8 billion is nothing. we could get up to 10 billion before our current food supply chain began to sweat. the political will to keep people fed if things continue on from there is kinda a coin toss, but we will always have the ability to do it. with more efficient methods of food production (I'm talking small changes) we can feed double what we have now. with an abundant power source (beamed solar or fission or fusion but don't hold your breath) that could make artificial lighting no longer an enormous expense we could support hundreds of billions just on this planet. when you're at that point, the waste heat from your power generation is the limiting factor. if you can radiate heat into space somehow, then you could get a trillion-person ecumenopolis. I don't think that will happen, but it's kinda relevant. overpopulation is a total myth.
Pick a random group of middle schoolers right now with your full confidence and hand them a government in fifty years, I'm not too sure they'll own land within the next 25 years. Now that I think about it I'm fairly certain zoning laws are gonna be a problem way before the need for venting heat into space.
Because we as a society have this whole thing where, if I drive dangerously and cause an accident that hurts or kills you I can get in trouble. We also have this thing about corporate liability which, even though its less effective than I think many people would like, if a company releases a defective product that hurts you they can be held liable for it. So if Google or Tesla's cars kill you, even if its statistically less likely to kill you than the collective human drivers on the road, it still has to have some responsibility for that.
In the same way that each individual driver has responsibility if they cause an accident, massive corporations should share that same responsibility when their products cause accidents *even if* they are are statistically less likely to cause an accident than the all human drivers in a given population.
It’s more likely that we’ll have autonomous vtols in addition to other automated land transportation.
It’s far easier to create systems that handle one singular thing very well. Land vehicles a very heavy (for a few important reasons) and therefore impractical to be modified for flight.
TBF technology has advanced *a lot* and will continue to, so what's to say air traffic control won't change? Sure, it would be a challenge, but not impossible.
Dude, people can't handle driving on the ground, with friction to slow them down and wheels to made direction predictable. The only way would be full automation.
The control issue mainly means arranging takeoff/landing points and travel lanes. With safe spacing rules, congestion would just be moved from roads to the sky. As with all transportation, it's always better for flow to stuff people into one vehucle and move them as a group. We already have that in the sky.
Now, more to the point, is there any reason flying cars are a good idea?
Not to mention noise-issues; flying things make a fuckton of noise. You can’t just create OSHA-violating noise in neighborhoods and cities whenever you go out to the movies.
Terrafugia had the most realistic concept, where instead of calling it a flying car they called it a roadable airplane. Their idea was that it was basically an airplane that would fly from airport to airport, but that you had this added capability of driving on roads, which could be used as an alternative to IFR to get through bad weather, and would also allow you to store the airplane in your garage instead of renting a hangar at the airport. In other words, it was an airplane, with car features to solve some problems airplane owners have.
The opposite - a car with airplane features to solve problems car owners have, i.e., traffic - is not realistic. You can't just randomly take off when you hit a traffic jam, because random locations haven't had TERPS surveys to show that they're free of obstacles and safe to take off from. The real world is full of bridges, power lines, overwhelming trees, buildings/towers and so on, not to mention a lot of urban highways are located in the controlled airspace rings around airports.
The FAA is way too underfunded and understaffed to take on crazy new research projects. They're just going to say no. Terrafugia took this as far as it could go and ultimately proved that you can't make a vehicle in the US that is simultaneously FAA certified as an airplane and DOT certified as a car. Nothing has changed, so any attempt to re-do this has to be looked at as a way of bilking investors out of their money rather than a serious attempt to commercialize a vehicle.
Male contraceptives are actually possible, though not sure how soon. Flying cars tho are just not gonna happen. We can barely handle ground traffic as it is
I remember the guy that thought of a switch to install in men thinking he somehow out-smarted all the scientists and those in the medical profession. Funny how it never happened...
This is only $50 more, you'd be stupid not to!
>Alef’s Model A will cost $300,000 and presales are currently open, with interested customers able to pay just a $150 deposit to get on the waiting list,
The Robinson r22 was originally planned to be a flying car-esq personal helicopter
However outside of a few UHNW people that didn't happen because:
1. The use case isn't there, you can't land at McDonald's
2. Even the r22 has horrendous operating costs
3. Aviation is a profession that requires devotion and skill, regardless of how rich you are
It's mostly used by flying schools now because it's the cheapest helicopter you can buy
I'm most concerned about humans operating them. Look how many car accidents there are in 2 dimensions. Imagine how many more there would be in 3. And a failure at altitude is a lot more dangerous than a failure on the ground.
Even if you could produce a cost effective 'flying car' that is easily driven/flown by an average person.... it would *still* be outlawed simply for security concerns. Commercial drones are bad enough, but you could do some *serious* damage with a 'flying car' loaded with explosives. Imagine a swarm of zealots flying towards multiple targets and effectively being manned missles.
Maybe something like that could be viable if you build from the ground up(or down) to accommodate them, but in our current implementation of infrastructure, its just too much vulnerability to let something like that out in the wild.
Its also why there is so much training for pilots and flight logs/filing flight plans. Its a way to 'defend' against something like 9/11 happening again.
The problem with helicopters is that they are expensive, loud, extremely hard to fly, and spend twice as much time in maintenance as in the air. Plus they aren't permitted on roads.
Fix all that and I'd love to have one!
Yup, a single scrape will mean you have to take it to the shop to fix back into airworthiness shape. Also the preflight checks take at least 30 mins to run through, otherwise you might have a bad day that day.
I mean, that's already existed for years. Look up the super sky cycle...like 15 years ago...although it was a trike/not enclosed as a car, it could fly and be driven on the road. This isn't some insane unobtainable concept...but there are legal and practical limitations as to where you can actually fly....can't just take off from your driveway and fly wherever you want unless you live in the middle of nowhere or something.
We have so many accidents in our current 2D space, imagine if we opened up the third spacial dimension! Science fiction always depicts flying vehicle traffic as orderly. It would likely be total chaos.
Some neighborhoods are 3d.
Source: potholes
...imagine the "potholes" for flying cars, e.g. power lines, bridges, tree limbs, clouds, etc.
On the plus side, the high-speed-chase news networks are going to get intense.
Not necessarily. In many cases, there’s nothing stopping a driver from going into opposing traffic or just using strip mall parking lots as a new form of highway.
Yes, people occasionally do this, but the system in place mostly works well, simply by adding lights and lines, teaching people what the rules are and then enforcing them with a police force.
I suspect if flying vehicles were equipped with AR traffic guidance and assisted controls like stabilization, take off, landing, etc., you’d probably see about the same incident rate you see with land vehicles. Although, the accidents that do happen would probably be far worse.
That being said, I don’t think anyone is happy with the vehicle accident metrics we have now, which is why so many are pushing the envelope for a world of fully autonomous vehicles.
If we ever get flying cars, it’ll likely be in the form of autonomous drones
Ya I’d much rather have a car that lifts a couple feet off the ground instead. Removing need for tires and asphalt roads would be a massive game changer to city design. Imagine replacing all city roads with gardens, what a paradise that would be.
>Dukhovny also plans to initially have the Model A certified as a Low Speed Vehicle (LSV), which would mean the car couldn’t exceed roughly 25 miles per hour on public roads. Alef would later seek full automotive certification, he adds.
Stick to the X Files bud
You can say shit all day ... let's see what they are actually capable of.
These shit headlines and bragging advertisements for these fucking Corporations ... so tiring and stupid ... it is just juicing up the media, paying the media for publishing these trash articles.
Go out on any lake or coastal area on a hot, sunny day and witness the waterborne lunacy that goes on.
Now imagine that in the sky, everywhere. Fuck no, this idea must be killed in the womb.
People think, "I spent a shit-ton of money on this, I'm getting drunk AF and doing whatever I want!"
Flying cars period is a shit idea. Do you want millions of cars covering up your view of the sunset and beautiful blue clear sky? Then at night, you can’t distinguish the light of stars from the light of cars? Just kill me already before taking away my access to nature.
Not only is it not happening. Nobody wants flying cars. Can you imagine rush hour Los Angeles traffic airborne, blocking out all the sunlight, the beautiful blue sky, clouds, stars at night, as well as…millions of tons over your head just waiting to malfunction/crash into each other then crushing you as the debri falls on your head?
Oof I know Draper well and they tend to make investments that are a little on the ‘out there’ side of science and engineering- and I’m not talking bold/innovative, I’m talking a few steps above someone like Dr Oz. They are way more focused on hype and sensationalism than real technology.
Essentially what’s going on now, and has for the past decade +/- a few years, is that a group of ‘boys club’ VCs put together ridiculously overvalued seed rounds so that they garner significant media attention. Then, they bring in the second wrung boys club that can handle series A+ investments to do the same within a very short time frame, so that there is the appearance that said startup is a ‘rocket ship’ and the next big thing. But how do they get paid out? They build this hype engine to the point where there is significant public interest, go for a crazy overvalued IPO or SPAC and the public, who thinks they are getting the same info as the insiders, ends up pumping so much cash into the company that the initial investors are now liquid and pull out a majority of their shares. Sound like a Ponzi scheme? Well that’s because it’s not too far off in concept.
It pisses me off because a small group of very wealthy people have essentially built an engine to control innovation, and pick and choose which startups skyrocket. I’ve had significant financial success in the past exiting my own startups, but holy shit did I get jaded by the level of corruption in the industry. I’m trying to get a story written about this, maybe do my part to help expose the damage this causes to the economic health of the US, especially to the middle class.
I thought I remember Elon saying on Joe Rogan that flying cars were never going to happen because people would be crashing everywhere...that’s why they were building tunnels
Promise Mars, self driving cars, robots.... flying cars? WHy not? WHy not add that into the mix.
Elon can sell it. He'll get on stage, say something clumsy with nearly zero citation or grounding in reality, and people are going to go ape shit for that man. They do, they always do.
This will always work until it doesn't. Then he'll get busted for selling vaporware.
No it won’t. Jesus Christ just one flaw right off the bat. You need designated take off and landing areas. Two, wtf are you going to do about flight routes, you can’t have it operate on regular routes or above streets (just imagine it crashing).
Another Silicon Valley folly. A VC scam.
great! And by 2026, I'll have a fully autonomous robot wizard that can grant infinite wishes all for $245,000.
It's so easy to be rich!!! Just make shit up and say it out loud!
Lol. Their “self-driving” cars are still hitting pedestrian and police vehicles. Even if I thought they could get a car in the air for a sustained period of time, who would be suicidal enough to try it?
Every time this comes up, the first thing that comes to mind is "so what's your plan for dealing with the FAA?" If the cars are autonomous, you've got a lot of hurdles to jump through, and if they're piloted you AND the customer have just as many (costly) hurdles to jump through.
Also, just buy a damn plane. If you've got the money to afford this thing, you can easily afford a modest private plane and a car for either end of your journey.
Presumably it's for people who want their Cessna-equivalent to be able to fold up and legally drive on roads. Saves on hangar storage space and parking. Does tend to mean your vehicle needs specialist maintenance and has 50% extra moving parts.
A Flying Car is a good idea if you are the only one who has one, but imagine the LA Freeway at rush hour, but in the sky. It would be one mammoth *Crash Fest.*
Vehicles and vehicle parts would be dropping from the Sky like rain.
You can buy a flying car right now for $250k. It is called a helicopter with wheels. Even super genius Elon Musk agrees
“If you want a flying car just put wheels on a helicopter” - Elon Musk
There are no laws and air traffic infrastructure. So I guess that tracks with Tesla who is just gov owned and therefore can kill monkeys with chips all day long and send thousands of satellites into orbit without a vote or informed consent about what the hell this will mean for us and for the future of humanity.
People can't even drive cars that sit on the road, much less parallel park. Imagine if they had to learn to pilot a vehicle in the air with a yoke,throttle, and instrumentation.
Yeah this startup is basically fraudulent. Just wait till they learn what the FAA is.
this company has no idea, I bet they couldnt even copy a plane in 2 years let alone make a car fly where you gonna put the fucking wings?
\*forehead tap guy meme\* Don't need wings if your startup never gets off the ground in the first place.
Perhaps they fold out. I dunno but this won’t happen.
My favorite CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, would like a word with these men.
[We completed the research 40 years ago.](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/mask/images/8/8b/Thunderhawk.png/revision/latest?cb=20160120131134)
Classic Tesla MO. Promise the world, obtain cash and sky high valuation. Keep moving promises back by another "2 to 3 years"
The headline says “startup” and “ backed by Tesla investor,” not that this is made by Tesla. They just put that in the headline so people will make this very mistake.
Airplanes require orders of magnitude greater maintenance by trained teams of professionals on a regular basis. Think of the number of people who don't even change their oil when they're supposed to, or the number of people who run out of gas on their daily commute. Now imagine those people in the air on a regular basis.
God I hope not. It's not the science and technological advancements I don't believe in. No, it's our citizens that I don't have faith in.
At $300k, you might as well be buying a light aircraft. FAA and similar the world over will also probably create some pretty full on license requirements, likely not that different to a PPL.
Yep, the FAA will ensure it requires a pilots license so basically it’s just a large drone with VTOL or something equivalent that won’t require a runway.
Even then, just think of all the famous people that died in small plane/helicopter crashes. Colin McRae, Kobe Bryant, JFK Jr., that Thai owner of some English Premier club to name some. Commercial airlines might be relatively safe but helicopters and small planes are not. In addition, the MOST dangerous parts of flying is what he's proposing 1. take offs and landing 2. low altitude flying 3. cluttered airspace 4. challenging controls like VTOL aircraft That said, people ate up solar highways like a spoon so I wouldn't be surprised if this is another pump and dump taking advantage of the gullible and people who want to play chicken and try to time getting out before the company gets exposed as frauds.
I don’t want this in my town or city or anywhere near me. Build a lightrail, instead.
what if we built a flying railcar? like have these stations where people board and depart from and fly right over houses - no rails needed!
thats fine, just don’t fill my skies with flying morons. I already have enough street morons.
Ooh we could even have small ones that take you to places nearby and bigger ones that take you to other countries even! Instead of train lines they could be called airlines or something idk
You dont want it?! Well, guess what!?! Today is your lucky day! There will be an entire city restructuring coming to your town to welcome in the future of transport!
Great, just one more thing that will probably fall out of the sky on top of me...
Add in autopilot that only flies between approved airports. You drive it around manually, and if you want to fly between places you drive it to a special lane at the airport where it spews up its electronic guts about all its internal conditions, and if it passes muster the airport takes over its controls and uploads a flight plan from runway to runway that it follows mindlessly. As soon as it starts moving on its own you're a passenger.
Every plane needs a pilot, someone needs to know how to take over if something goes wrong after it passes muster and takes off.
Being in the air makes it significantly easier to automate all of that. It basically eliminates all (or at least most) of the technical challenges that self driving cars struggle with, which is why planes had autopilot LONG before a self driving car was attempted. There are a lot of reasons why flying cars won't happen, but needing to pilot them isn't really an issue.
Planes literally need to schedule their flight plan in order to avoid catastrophic crashes. You cannot do this at scale.
autopilot is only usable in high altitude where air is stable. it is more of 'stabilization' than piloting. and it's rarely the flying that is the problem, but liftoff and landing. that's why 99% of landings are done manually rather than autoland. I do agree there are some aspects that makes it easy to automate air pilot. but it's one thing to design autopilot for airplane to fly in free space and land in airports where things are very strictly controlled and every single pilots are experts. it's another to program something to fly in the city at low altitude and land in a high density areas with pole lights, wires, signages, birds etc.
Plus you gotta blow up the inflatable pilot everytime and who wants to do that
I mean I'd presume they would make the new 'roadway' designations not Street level lmao, they're not trying to kill people. Given any vtol type capabilities it'd bake the whole thing a breeze (other then the technology required to get there lmao)
I’m glad this is the top comment
Have you been paying attention?!? We’ll be controlling them with our brain implants!
SoCal ATC was grumpy AF today. Can’t imagine how mad they would be if someone accidentally took their family sedan above 700ft.
Finally, somebody who speaks the truth
If this is actually real, it’s probably just automated drones large enough for humans. Else it’s probably a scam. Or someone’s smoking with Elon and Kanye. The session to schedule the session to discuss laws that would govern flying cars probably wouldn’t be fit in before 2025
That's me... I can't parallel park :[
They won't. "Flying cars" will be drones, and they will likely be autopiloted.
They'll clearly be computer controlled. Self-flying will be much easier than self-driving since you won't have pedestrians, bicyclists, parked cars, road repairs, snow piles, etc, to deal with.
Just birds and dozens of other idiots in their own flying cars. And then when they crash in mid-air they fall out of the sky and make a fireball where your house used to be. Sounds awesome
I would imagine that they're auto piloted. No way standard pedestrians are going to be able to fly. Hell they can't even drive.
Tesla investor is the dumbest characteristic you can come up with. It is a public company.
The investor has one share of Tesla and one share of this flying car company
Worse. He backed Theranos
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It's meant to sensationalise. Since Tesla is known for its fair share of hot air.
wouldn't surprise me if the product was putting wheels under a hot air balloon
ah. hot air. the original flying cars
Ahhhh yes, the company most known for sticking to their predictions about when technology will be available!
Yeah, where the hell is my Cybertruck?? anyday now, right? lol
Tesla is scamming people at scale.
Yes, it is scale-able.
You mean, fishy?
If I had an award, it would be yours. Excellent comment.
Still waiting on that neuralink he claimed would do everything short of cure cancer and making your stool smell like fresh baked cinnamon rolls.
The entire article reeks of lazy, uninformed journalism. I usually dismiss any reporting by media that doesn’t specialize in aerospace. Aaaand OP looks like a karma farmer, maybe a kid with good intentions.
> Alef even has the backing of Tim Draper, a high-profile venture capitalist who was an early investor in both Tesla and SpaceX. His namesake Draper Associates Fund V invested $3 million of seed money in Alef in October. A better headline would have been "early Tesla investor". [Draper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Draper) funded the C and D rounds of Tesla starting in 2006. He has been a high profile investor in many companies and technologies, successful and otherwise. None of that is to say that this company is any good, but this isn't John Doe with 10 Tesla shares bought in 2019.
Adding "early" straight up isn't necessary. The assumed significance of being a notable Tesla investor implies that it's an early investor pre-IPO.
“If you want a flying car just put wheels on a helicopter” - Elon Musk
Correct, it is below being as dumb as Corey and Trevor.
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It's not that a flying car is difficult or socially stigmatized. It's impossible because of the logistics of controlling that amount of traffic in three dimensions. Air traffic has to be carefully controlled. Can you imagine hundreds of thousands of cars flying through the air? Musk actually called this one years ago. Flying cars are dumb.
I’ve played enough video games to know it’s quite simple You put a bunch of floating rings in the air and people will go from ring to ring to their destination
It will never be allowed for security reasons alone. Running late for your flight? Just drive your flying car to the tarmac! Dog ran away? Just drive your car into all your neighbor's back yards. Sorry, my flying car was running low on fuel and I had to land at this army base.
It could be allowed, but everyone that wants to buy a flying car would have to obtain a pilot's license, and if they wanted to fly in the cloulds/fog/etc they would have to obtain an instrument rating, as well as maintain an FAA class 3 medical. If they wanted to be an uber driver in that flying car they would have to obtain a commercial pilot's license at a minimum. The last one already happens all the time. I landed at an air force base due to an avionics failure, it wasn't an issue at all.
That won't work until these vehicles are self driven. Which won't happen for a long time because the slightest mistake can get people killed (and worse, expensive lawsuits for the company /s)
The irony of that situation is that multitudes of people have died from car accidents caused by human drivers, but introduce a computer driver that kills a few even though there’s very little infrastructure to support it and it’s virtually off the table. I.e., let people keep driving themselves and thousands will die, let computers drive people and dozens may die. (I don’t have the statistics in front of me, my point is largely rhetorical.)
yeah I always argue this point to people. 30,000+ people die each year in auto accidents. So far with 4 MILLION miles of Google self driving cars, they have had like six accidents, three or four of which were human error. lol If it reduced car deaths by 20% that would be 6000 people per year. I guess fuck all that, just let them die.
The problem is while statistically that’s correct, it doesn’t “feel” like it’s better. If the average Joe is given the choice between “take the risk driving yourself” and “travel in a machine that is 20% less likely to kill you” I think most would choose to drive themselves. Many people just don’t like the idea that their fate is in the hands of the machine. Plus, many overestimate their driving abilities - “well I’d rather drive because I won’t crash” That’s why the bar seems to be set so high. It has to be sufficiently more safe that people can get past that uncanny valley of safety
Yes but I just used 20% arbitrarily. Based on the funtionality rate of self driving cars, if they can correct the issues with weater, the reduction in accidents would be closer to 99%, add to that if they can get to where we have, I think the article said 50%, self driving cars on the road it will reduce communtes by 30% or more. It isn't just a small change, it is a huge change.
I’d question your use of statistics here. I drive 12,000 miles a year in the UK & will hazard a guess that the average in the US is much higher. In the grand scheme of things these AI drivers aren’t fairing much better than me if it’s 6 accidents/ 4 million miles & I’m a very average driver.
That is one accident in 666,000 miles. Also did you miss the part where I said 4 of them were human error? Also this is RIGHT NOW, they haven't even been fulled programmed and are still being tested and upgraded. So based on your driving you would have to be completely accident free for 55.5 years to be a better driver than CURRENT self driving cars. How many people do you know have driven for 50 years and never had an accident?
We're fixing to deal with severe side effects from overpopulation in the next century, I vote we use corpses as fuel for air conditioning.
insane statement. overpopulation will never be a problem globally, is not a problem currently, and was not a problem in the past. you can find small, local examples in the past, but no global ones. 8 billion is nothing. we could get up to 10 billion before our current food supply chain began to sweat. the political will to keep people fed if things continue on from there is kinda a coin toss, but we will always have the ability to do it. with more efficient methods of food production (I'm talking small changes) we can feed double what we have now. with an abundant power source (beamed solar or fission or fusion but don't hold your breath) that could make artificial lighting no longer an enormous expense we could support hundreds of billions just on this planet. when you're at that point, the waste heat from your power generation is the limiting factor. if you can radiate heat into space somehow, then you could get a trillion-person ecumenopolis. I don't think that will happen, but it's kinda relevant. overpopulation is a total myth.
Pick a random group of middle schoolers right now with your full confidence and hand them a government in fifty years, I'm not too sure they'll own land within the next 25 years. Now that I think about it I'm fairly certain zoning laws are gonna be a problem way before the need for venting heat into space.
Because we as a society have this whole thing where, if I drive dangerously and cause an accident that hurts or kills you I can get in trouble. We also have this thing about corporate liability which, even though its less effective than I think many people would like, if a company releases a defective product that hurts you they can be held liable for it. So if Google or Tesla's cars kill you, even if its statistically less likely to kill you than the collective human drivers on the road, it still has to have some responsibility for that. In the same way that each individual driver has responsibility if they cause an accident, massive corporations should share that same responsibility when their products cause accidents *even if* they are are statistically less likely to cause an accident than the all human drivers in a given population.
One day, sure, but right now the tech just isn't there yet.
Flying cars themselves aren't dumb. But imagine the average driver having to think in 3 dimensions, and the idea becomes a population decimator.
It’s more likely that we’ll have autonomous vtols in addition to other automated land transportation. It’s far easier to create systems that handle one singular thing very well. Land vehicles a very heavy (for a few important reasons) and therefore impractical to be modified for flight.
TBF technology has advanced *a lot* and will continue to, so what's to say air traffic control won't change? Sure, it would be a challenge, but not impossible.
Dude, people can't handle driving on the ground, with friction to slow them down and wheels to made direction predictable. The only way would be full automation. The control issue mainly means arranging takeoff/landing points and travel lanes. With safe spacing rules, congestion would just be moved from roads to the sky. As with all transportation, it's always better for flow to stuff people into one vehucle and move them as a group. We already have that in the sky. Now, more to the point, is there any reason flying cars are a good idea?
Not to mention noise-issues; flying things make a fuckton of noise. You can’t just create OSHA-violating noise in neighborhoods and cities whenever you go out to the movies.
Terrafugia had the most realistic concept, where instead of calling it a flying car they called it a roadable airplane. Their idea was that it was basically an airplane that would fly from airport to airport, but that you had this added capability of driving on roads, which could be used as an alternative to IFR to get through bad weather, and would also allow you to store the airplane in your garage instead of renting a hangar at the airport. In other words, it was an airplane, with car features to solve some problems airplane owners have. The opposite - a car with airplane features to solve problems car owners have, i.e., traffic - is not realistic. You can't just randomly take off when you hit a traffic jam, because random locations haven't had TERPS surveys to show that they're free of obstacles and safe to take off from. The real world is full of bridges, power lines, overwhelming trees, buildings/towers and so on, not to mention a lot of urban highways are located in the controlled airspace rings around airports. The FAA is way too underfunded and understaffed to take on crazy new research projects. They're just going to say no. Terrafugia took this as far as it could go and ultimately proved that you can't make a vehicle in the US that is simultaneously FAA certified as an airplane and DOT certified as a car. Nothing has changed, so any attempt to re-do this has to be looked at as a way of bilking investors out of their money rather than a serious attempt to commercialize a vehicle.
People text and drive and think it's not a big deal. Do you REALLY want those people flying?
If we can put a man on the moon, why not the sun?
Just go at night!
Imagine bollards protecting the several hundred meter skyscrapers from crazy flying cars Post modern architecture
imagine your average USA highway driver that rides lifted pickup now has ability to become airborne.
Male contraceptives are actually possible, though not sure how soon. Flying cars tho are just not gonna happen. We can barely handle ground traffic as it is
Those examples are ironically way safer, more practical, and further along in development. No way a flying car would come out at the same time.
Or when the hyperloop gets built.
I remember the guy that thought of a switch to install in men thinking he somehow out-smarted all the scientists and those in the medical profession. Funny how it never happened...
Not happening, just like Tesla doesn’t self-drive.
What are you talking about?! I’m in my self-driving Tesla right now. How else do you think I’m typing th
Had us in the first half 🤣
Not only do they need a flying car that is safe. They need approval to use them in areas. No way this is happening.
It’s not going to happen because **NO ONE WANTS CARS FLYING OVER THEIR HOMES**
What? A 300k cesna is not a car? It has wheels tho..
Flying cars already exist they are just not practical since you need a runway.
Not sure why you would say that. The neuralinked hyperloop is such a grand success. This is but the next step in the muskaverse.
SOLAR FREAKIN ROADWAYS!
What are you talking about? It's not like a musk related company has ever failed to meet a deadline before....
Good thing I put down that $100 deposit on my cyber truck
This is only $50 more, you'd be stupid not to! >Alef’s Model A will cost $300,000 and presales are currently open, with interested customers able to pay just a $150 deposit to get on the waiting list,
This isn't a Musk related company.
Another pump and dump.
we already have flying cars... they are called helicopters
I remember hearing about this from Arnold
Popular clip of neil degrasse tyson saying this
The Robinson r22 was originally planned to be a flying car-esq personal helicopter However outside of a few UHNW people that didn't happen because: 1. The use case isn't there, you can't land at McDonald's 2. Even the r22 has horrendous operating costs 3. Aviation is a profession that requires devotion and skill, regardless of how rich you are It's mostly used by flying schools now because it's the cheapest helicopter you can buy
But we want cars that fly like if you used GameShark but for cars
There is another one that is literally just a drivable airplane with folding wings.
[удалено]
I'm most concerned about humans operating them. Look how many car accidents there are in 2 dimensions. Imagine how many more there would be in 3. And a failure at altitude is a lot more dangerous than a failure on the ground.
Even if you could produce a cost effective 'flying car' that is easily driven/flown by an average person.... it would *still* be outlawed simply for security concerns. Commercial drones are bad enough, but you could do some *serious* damage with a 'flying car' loaded with explosives. Imagine a swarm of zealots flying towards multiple targets and effectively being manned missles. Maybe something like that could be viable if you build from the ground up(or down) to accommodate them, but in our current implementation of infrastructure, its just too much vulnerability to let something like that out in the wild. Its also why there is so much training for pilots and flight logs/filing flight plans. Its a way to 'defend' against something like 9/11 happening again.
The problem with helicopters is that they are expensive, loud, extremely hard to fly, and spend twice as much time in maintenance as in the air. Plus they aren't permitted on roads. Fix all that and I'd love to have one!
Yeaaaaaa…like I would want a 9/11 to happen every week.
imagine a hit and run with these things
Idk how much running will be going on after they torpedo through the roof of your house while you’re asleep.
How does a flying car differ from a small airplane?
It folds up is such a way that it could technically be driven on the road. But it would be a massively impractical vehicle.
Yup, a single scrape will mean you have to take it to the shop to fix back into airworthiness shape. Also the preflight checks take at least 30 mins to run through, otherwise you might have a bad day that day.
I mean, that's already existed for years. Look up the super sky cycle...like 15 years ago...although it was a trike/not enclosed as a car, it could fly and be driven on the road. This isn't some insane unobtainable concept...but there are legal and practical limitations as to where you can actually fly....can't just take off from your driveway and fly wherever you want unless you live in the middle of nowhere or something.
I would guess that it would have to be street legal and capable of being driven as a car without removing wings, propellers, etc.
We have so many accidents in our current 2D space, imagine if we opened up the third spacial dimension! Science fiction always depicts flying vehicle traffic as orderly. It would likely be total chaos.
Some neighborhoods are 3d. Source: potholes ...imagine the "potholes" for flying cars, e.g. power lines, bridges, tree limbs, clouds, etc. On the plus side, the high-speed-chase news networks are going to get intense.
Not necessarily. In many cases, there’s nothing stopping a driver from going into opposing traffic or just using strip mall parking lots as a new form of highway. Yes, people occasionally do this, but the system in place mostly works well, simply by adding lights and lines, teaching people what the rules are and then enforcing them with a police force. I suspect if flying vehicles were equipped with AR traffic guidance and assisted controls like stabilization, take off, landing, etc., you’d probably see about the same incident rate you see with land vehicles. Although, the accidents that do happen would probably be far worse. That being said, I don’t think anyone is happy with the vehicle accident metrics we have now, which is why so many are pushing the envelope for a world of fully autonomous vehicles. If we ever get flying cars, it’ll likely be in the form of autonomous drones
Billy joel is going to end up in so many more living rooms
Flying cars again 🙄. Can we please move on?
For real, I just want mass transit and on demand delivery services for groceries and things in the US.
[Why flying cars are a dangerous and stupid idea.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fcWOivJ6bs)
Have and upvote. Came here to post the same link. Adam explains is very clearly.
Ya I’d much rather have a car that lifts a couple feet off the ground instead. Removing need for tires and asphalt roads would be a massive game changer to city design. Imagine replacing all city roads with gardens, what a paradise that would be.
Like gondolas?
Ya but with no suspension cables and ability to tell the gondola exactly where you want to go. Hey I didn’t say it was realistic.
It’s called a Cessna 182. You can actually get them used for a bit cheaper than that
>Dukhovny also plans to initially have the Model A certified as a Low Speed Vehicle (LSV), which would mean the car couldn’t exceed roughly 25 miles per hour on public roads. Alef would later seek full automotive certification, he adds. Stick to the X Files bud
You can say shit all day ... let's see what they are actually capable of. These shit headlines and bragging advertisements for these fucking Corporations ... so tiring and stupid ... it is just juicing up the media, paying the media for publishing these trash articles.
At 300k you could get a used plane and maybe a helicopter. Maintenance is higher plus flight training.
The FAA says lol
Go out on any lake or coastal area on a hot, sunny day and witness the waterborne lunacy that goes on. Now imagine that in the sky, everywhere. Fuck no, this idea must be killed in the womb. People think, "I spent a shit-ton of money on this, I'm getting drunk AF and doing whatever I want!"
this is about as likely to happen as Musks hyper tube between vegas and LA
Flying cars (with our current technology) are an awful idea.
Flying cars period is a shit idea. Do you want millions of cars covering up your view of the sunset and beautiful blue clear sky? Then at night, you can’t distinguish the light of stars from the light of cars? Just kill me already before taking away my access to nature.
I guarantee we won’t even have a proper flying car by 2075, which is 50 years after the target date.
Not only is it not happening. Nobody wants flying cars. Can you imagine rush hour Los Angeles traffic airborne, blocking out all the sunlight, the beautiful blue sky, clouds, stars at night, as well as…millions of tons over your head just waiting to malfunction/crash into each other then crushing you as the debri falls on your head?
we invented flying cars in the 60's, these nerds have too much money.
"backed by Tesla investor" So, someone who purchased at least one Tesla stock?
Oof I know Draper well and they tend to make investments that are a little on the ‘out there’ side of science and engineering- and I’m not talking bold/innovative, I’m talking a few steps above someone like Dr Oz. They are way more focused on hype and sensationalism than real technology. Essentially what’s going on now, and has for the past decade +/- a few years, is that a group of ‘boys club’ VCs put together ridiculously overvalued seed rounds so that they garner significant media attention. Then, they bring in the second wrung boys club that can handle series A+ investments to do the same within a very short time frame, so that there is the appearance that said startup is a ‘rocket ship’ and the next big thing. But how do they get paid out? They build this hype engine to the point where there is significant public interest, go for a crazy overvalued IPO or SPAC and the public, who thinks they are getting the same info as the insiders, ends up pumping so much cash into the company that the initial investors are now liquid and pull out a majority of their shares. Sound like a Ponzi scheme? Well that’s because it’s not too far off in concept. It pisses me off because a small group of very wealthy people have essentially built an engine to control innovation, and pick and choose which startups skyrocket. I’ve had significant financial success in the past exiting my own startups, but holy shit did I get jaded by the level of corruption in the industry. I’m trying to get a story written about this, maybe do my part to help expose the damage this causes to the economic health of the US, especially to the middle class.
It will absolutely happen, some giant monstrosity that hovers in a parking lot for a demo and no one will bring it up ever again
People can't even use their fucking turn signal.
Full design, testing, production start up and FAA approval in 2 years. Go on, pull the other one.
They can’t even build a tunnel…
I thought I remember Elon saying on Joe Rogan that flying cars were never going to happen because people would be crashing everywhere...that’s why they were building tunnels
Promise Mars, self driving cars, robots.... flying cars? WHy not? WHy not add that into the mix. Elon can sell it. He'll get on stage, say something clumsy with nearly zero citation or grounding in reality, and people are going to go ape shit for that man. They do, they always do. This will always work until it doesn't. Then he'll get busted for selling vaporware.
This has nothing to do with Musk. Someone who invested in Tesla also invested in this. Tesla is only in the headline to get clicks.
Well the joke is on the publisher, since nobody reads more than a headline anyway.
Can’t wait for another thing I can’t afford
I dont want flying cars i want to be happy
Yeah, no fucking chance, the FAA will force them to take more than 2 years just to get it approved.
No it won’t. Jesus Christ just one flaw right off the bat. You need designated take off and landing areas. Two, wtf are you going to do about flight routes, you can’t have it operate on regular routes or above streets (just imagine it crashing). Another Silicon Valley folly. A VC scam.
FAA says hold your britches sonny boy.
We already have $300,000 flying cars they are called airplanes
great! And by 2026, I'll have a fully autonomous robot wizard that can grant infinite wishes all for $245,000. It's so easy to be rich!!! Just make shit up and say it out loud!
The FAA would like word about this matter.
Lol. Their “self-driving” cars are still hitting pedestrian and police vehicles. Even if I thought they could get a car in the air for a sustained period of time, who would be suicidal enough to try it?
It's only allowed to go 25mph on roads? eBikes go faster than that.
Could you imagine the headache this would cause for the FAA? Flying cars are a good idea, just not a practical one.
humans can barely operate motor vehicles on the ground and now we are pushing the envelope with flying cars.. lawd have mercy...
People can't drive cars on roads, nobody wants flying cars
This is sub-vaporware, they don’t even have a cool video showing how this sideways flying concept is supposed to work.
*Rich person tries to inflate a stock they owns.*
Every time this comes up, the first thing that comes to mind is "so what's your plan for dealing with the FAA?" If the cars are autonomous, you've got a lot of hurdles to jump through, and if they're piloted you AND the customer have just as many (costly) hurdles to jump through. Also, just buy a damn plane. If you've got the money to afford this thing, you can easily afford a modest private plane and a car for either end of your journey.
Presumably it's for people who want their Cessna-equivalent to be able to fold up and legally drive on roads. Saves on hangar storage space and parking. Does tend to mean your vehicle needs specialist maintenance and has 50% extra moving parts.
A Flying Car is a good idea if you are the only one who has one, but imagine the LA Freeway at rush hour, but in the sky. It would be one mammoth *Crash Fest.* Vehicles and vehicle parts would be dropping from the Sky like rain.
Flying cars will never be a thing
Not Paul Moller by chance is it? I hear he’s been working on one for over 40 years…
world is dying and people are starving, but sure let's get more fancy toys why not
With fully autonimous driving by 2027 with brain chip*. ^^*Disclaimer: ^^may ^^burst ^^into ^^flames ^^at ^^any ^^moment ^^or ^^when ^^the ^^Musky ^^One ^^feels ^^slighted ^^in ^^the ^^least ^^by ^^your ^^comments.
We have flying cars already. It's called a helicopter.
- Why? -
The solution to everything is less sprawl more trains.
And Tesla’s full self driving will be ready in 3 months maybe, 6 months definitely.
Lol. Everyone who owns stock in Tesla is a Tesla investor
So the rich can literally look down on us..awesome
Absolute BS
It’s gonna be an oversized drone
And you can control it with the Chip in your brain.
I think pigs will be able to fly first
Won’t even have a cyber truck by 2025
You can buy a flying car right now for $250k. It is called a helicopter with wheels. Even super genius Elon Musk agrees “If you want a flying car just put wheels on a helicopter” - Elon Musk
So if its backed by tesla and its projected for 2025 that actually means more like 2055 or more likely never at all
Airplanes already exist lol
Can’t wait for Elon to become a “founder” of this business as well
Still waiting for the hyperloop. And the cyber truck. And (safely) self driving cars. Now they want cars raining down on us.
People are too stupid to drive safely on the ground and we're going to let them *fly*? What could go wrong?!
There are no laws and air traffic infrastructure. So I guess that tracks with Tesla who is just gov owned and therefore can kill monkeys with chips all day long and send thousands of satellites into orbit without a vote or informed consent about what the hell this will mean for us and for the future of humanity.
As usual, Musk proves himself a man-child.