Flying Cars

From Daniel Albert, n + 1

Here we are half a decade into the 21st century and still no flying cars. We know there are powerful interests to overcome—gravity, for one thing, and all those people making money on our baroque transport system. The Portland Cement Association, not to mention the Mob, rake it in pouring ribbons of concrete. The automakers who killed the electric car probably wouldn’t mind sparing a bullet for a car that flies, while Boeing, Airbus, and the airlines are unlikely to give up their investment in the self-propelled cargo units euphemistically known as passenger planes.

But history, technology, and the earth itself are on the side of the flying car. The highway systems of the world are up to a century old, as is the basic architecture of person driving car on rubber wheels over hard-surfaced road. The technology for driverless or robot cars, able to keep their distance from others and play nice on the roads, already exists, but the historical and regulatory baggage of the land car won’t let it happen.

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