Current Events > If the world's technology existed back in the 50s.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Think we would have had flying cars already?

Necessity is the mother of invention. We won't get flying cars until there's a damn good reason to have them.

I think at this juncture they would cause more problems than solutions.

What we need is better regular roads, or changes to dynamics that lead to less vehicles needing to be out and about always.

Did they not have technology in the 50's?

we actually already have them

the problem is that fitting a car engine into something that can fly is too heavy so either you can just make something that is another plane or you make it also able to drive on the road but barely fly for an hour

the second thing is FAA and safety of such a thing

No, lol. Perhaps possible, certainly impractical.

They were a fun thought experiment back when people just didn't think about energy for some reason, but now that we're perpetually 50 years from running out of oil, making a car levitate is at best going to be a tech demo.

Frostmourne posted...

Think we would have had flying cars already?

See little benefit in creating them.

We already have a climate change problem. Flying cars would accelerate that given how much energy would be needed to have a car fly. Not to mention the threat that would pose worldwide of a flying contraption granted to the general public on a much accepted scale than planes.

I want a flying car.

I do not want other people to have flying cars.

To use a similar example, we've had fully-functioning jetpacks since the 1960's. They're just wildly impractical on a number of levels. And like others have said, there's no urgency to drive innovation because, even if you got over the technical limitations and mass-produced them, the actual consumer pool will inevitably be very low; everyone thinks they want jetpacks and flying cars, but give them a chance to think it over and your average citizen will quickly realize how ridiculously dangerous and undesirable such things would be to own and operate.