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Why Elon Musk Doesn't Like Flying Cars (yahoo.com)
boley1 quotes Business Insider:
According to Elon Musk, the main challenges with flying cars are that they'll be noisy and generate lots of wind because of the downward force required to keep them in the air. Plus, there's an anxiety factor. "Let's just say if something is flying over your head...that is not an anxiety-reducing situation," he said. "You don't think to yourself 'Well, I feel better about today. You're thinking 'Is it going to come off and guillotine me as it comes flying past?'"
What brand of toilet paper Elon uses should make front page of Slashdot.
The problem with flying cars is... well they are flying. Which means they are in the air over our heads all the time. When a normal car malfunctions it is only traveling in two dimensial space and on a designated road, which means the damage is minimal given the cirumstances. When a flying car malfunctions he will not only crash into other flying cars in the same two dimensial space he will also fall in the third dimension and on other flying cars below him creating a cascading disaster and they will fall onto buildings, bridges, schools, stadiums e.t.c.
The only way flying cars will be a reality is that if they are treated exactly like airplanes, with all the pilot training, monitoring and security measures that comes with that or they will have their own "sky roads" which they follow, but in that case the point of flying cars are greatly reduced.
Also, energy requirements. Ground vehicles are so much better at lower speeds.
Ezekiel 23:20
The bigger question is why we have to move around so much. Why does ever journey in modern suburban life require driving? I live in a city, and can walk to restaurants, walk to work, walk to the supermarket. I accept this is not for everyone, but suburban life sits at the other end, where getting a pint of milk requires driving. Add in congestion and parking issues and it is like a real-life rube-goldberg machine for living.
Stop this obsession with single use planning zones, and the need for humans to turn up in person everywhere and much of these problems can be fixed. It's not like we fixed the time it takes to deliver mail by having a fleet of hypersonic aircraft that can deliver letters anywhere in the world in less than an hour. We just used different technological solutions instead and got far better results. Similarly, the solution to traffic congestion is to stop this ridiculous need for the inhabitants of a city to shuffle back and forth between two areas everyday. The original argument for single use planning was that it would improve quality of life. It evidently does not, because the highest real estate prices now are for quality housing in dense urban areas where people can walk around their local communities.