Urban air mobility / autonomous flying cars

[Marjo]

Hey guys!

I really liked this TechCrunch article about the emergence of urban air mobility. There's been a growing interest for developing technology to be able to utilise the urban airspace more effectively for various purposes, especially for cargo delivery and passenger transport.

Many companies are working on developing urban air mobility vehicles ("flying cars") and there's been over 100 prototypes so far introduced (one also at CES 2019 recently!). A lot of the technological development in other areas that's currently happening (AI, satellites, batteries etc) is also complementary to the development of these types of vehicles, increasing the exciting possibilities.

There's also an interesting read here that suggests a global autonomous urban aircraft industry is possible by 2040.

Would you be interested in commuting in the air instead of on the roads?  Apart from things like better delivery times for your online orders especially if you live in a rural area, and reduced congestion in urban areas, what other benefits do you think "flying cars" would bring? 

[Glory1]

Where I live in London congestion on the roads is serious, so flying cars are a great idea. Though I can see congestion in the air becoming a problem instead!

As someone who loves flying, the idea of a flying car excites me and I'd love to be a passenger in one. Unfortunately, I don't think it will be a reality in my lifetime. There's just too many rules and regulations that would have to be in place before any cars took to the air.

[Cleoriff]

Funnily enough one of my favourite authors is JD Robb aka known as Nora Roberts.

She writes a series of books (In Death) based in 2060

The main character is Eve Dallas, who is a New York cop and they use urban flying cars. If fact they use a lot of tech which I find fascinating. Hand held PPC's etc. 

When you consider she started writing these books in 1995, it shows she had a lot of vision.

[TallTrees]

Hi @Marjo

I find that rather odd. 

I thought humans were developing tech not to move about.

Working for the company that employs you from home and getting together with

computer conferencing systems.

V.R. instead of real holidays.

Live streaming etc. for "attending" (not) at gigs. 

Shopping from your home computer, instead of going to the supermarket. 

We may even move toward the "star trek" style of materialisation in the place you need to be.

All of the above reducing the individual moving about.

My thoughts are that physically moving about will be a thing of the past.