I did my futures wheel on Hover Cars. I am personally excited about the idea of a hyper-loop and since that future isn’t too far off, I wanted to go further into the future about travel.
Part of my interpretations of the future with hover cars came from the Back to the Future movie, when Doc loads a bunch of trash as fuel for the time machine Delorean. It was the most ideal form of energy ever presented and it has just stuck with me forever.
I feel like hover cars are going to be the natural progression of transportation. One of the worst things about being an adult is the amount of time spent in a car. We have always wanted to design in order to make ourselves or others more comfortable. Unless we can master teleportation, improving the individual aspects of traveling in a car to culminate into a hover car is a very logical direction to go.
Currently, there is a lot of discussion in politics about “the green new deal” and a large pool of non-profits that are already finding ways to tackle our green-house problem. My more optimistic view of the future includes everyone finally agreeing with these “green” ideals. The more we find out about our planet the better we are at preventing damage to our delicate ecosystem.
As it is now the friction between road pavement and car tires factors into the efficiency of an engine to propel the car forward. Frictionless movement is how our current satellites are able to travel at incredible speeds endlessly above our heads. For a car to be able to propel forward with little-to-no friction allows for a smoother, more fuel-efficient vehicle. Since hover cars… hover, there’s also no more need for pavement. This could potentially encourage more vegetation growth across the entire planet where roads would normally be.
Since people will be able to go further there won’t be a need for as many fuel stations. This hovercar uses some kind of energy source to work. That energy source, like with electric cars today, could be something that is already provided to each home. Perhaps it is electricity or something more organic. Regardless, hover cars won’t be constrained by distance.
With smoother, faster transportation comes more responsibility. It will probably take too many resources to teach everyone how to fly. As it is now, accidents are a huge problem that causes more than 36,000 deaths/ year in the US. It could only get worse when you add flying machines to the equation. To alleviate this I assume AI will take over this stressful responsibility. Tesla is already making advances in their cars with AI driving and can already stop itself when it predicts an impact as well as drive within the road parameters. In the future, this could be perfected to integrate with our digital assistants and make traveling IOT integration more seamless as well.
Hover Cars use advanced technology that will have been developed and perfected throughout the years. These vehicles require special grade materials and scientists to make them a reality. This technology will probably be quite expensive, more expensive than what a modern car would be like today. Plus it utilizes a “green” energy source which is never affordable when it is fresh on the market.
Right now, the easiest way to imagine the future is “everything is iPhones.” IoT and AI will be the rulers of our society (but at least we will have flying cars!).
The DeLorean lol…it also reminds me of other movies like The Fifth Element where you see your vision of flying cars come to live. But I’m thinking the concept of flying cars is still a long ways from our grasp as you’ve stated, it would probably take a lot of resources and energy to provide that kind of power.
The flying car is so cool. It would be very helpful if we can use some of the space above the highway to avoid traffic. Electric vehicles can also reduce carbon emissions. Environmentally friendly and convenient.