NIGHTLORD40K
Active member
They will be autonomous- the only user selectable controls will be destination, climate control, and infotainment.The reality is that this is a fantasy. Duh.
Even if they could build the things for a cost someone average could afford (they can't ), and if the average driver learned the skills to operate the thing safely (they won't ), the amount of maintenance required to remain sky worthy would leave them grounded a good amount of time.
I've been in the automotive industry for 18 years, trust me when I say, very few people are willing to maintain a modern car. There's not a chance in hell the population could be responsible for a machine that will plummet to earth if it takes a dump. Plus the cost, most folks act like you tried to murder them if THEIR car needs a couple thousand $ in work. I'm sure flying car repair would be many times more expensive for any little thing.
Then the environmentalists start moaning about how many hawks and sparrows get hit every year. Between the flying cars and their windmills all birds would go extinct . Plus there's no floating McDonald's so you'd have to use the old wheelie car to go through a drive thru. Think about the chaos a drunk flying car driver could do, staggering.
I'll bet in 200 years people still won't have flying cars. Maybe I'm a pessimist but the population is brutally dumb.
Regular maintainance will be mandatory. If the necessary inspections arent done every so many flight hours, the vehicle will refuse to take off. Its conceiveable that the vehicle could even schedule and fly to its maintainance checkups automatically while the owner is at work/sleeping.
Another option would be to send a drone to physically inspect the vehicle- the footage could be reviewed by a meat bag, err, I mean human, tech and heshe could send a reactivation signal remotely. This is all assuming the onboard diagnostics arent detecting anything abnormal already.
We are already having discussions at our dealership about what to do when autonomous vehicles show up for repairs and no one is on board.
Full disclosure: I work for Cadillac. I also dont drive or own one. Draw whatever conclusions you want.