this post was submitted on 22 May 2025
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Yeah, I too once thought flying cars were the best idea since sliced bread. I've since grown up and realized that they're just airplanes with extra steps, cause it's not like you're ever going to be able to land it on a highway or whatever. It will always be cheaper to just buy an airplane and a car and use one to get to the other.
I guess the problem is that if you take your car to the plane, then your plane somewhere else, suddenly you don't have your car. And then if you drive somewhere else you don't have your plane any more.
I think it's pretty obvious that rental cars and commercial flights make a lot more sense for most scenarios. But I guess it's possible to imagine scenarios where this vehicle makes sense, either for extensive round trips or for places where car rentals don't exist but the roads are nevertheless pretty good.
This is more complicated than you think. The vast majority of airports in the US are tiny little things you would barely know are there unless you're a pilot. Most don't have rental car services. Many are in communities where even lyft/uber are not available.
The flying car thing is still pretty dumb. But it's not as dumb as it might first sound. One of the #1 problems my family has when we fly our (very small, very old) plane on trips is how to get from the airport to anyplace reasonable.
Yeah, I imagine parts of the US is probably pretty ideal for this. Where I'm from you'll find remote places where it would make sense, but you probably wouldn't want to drive around in a rather low riding sports car on the roads in these places. I guess this thing probably won't be street legal in Europe anyway.
Yeah I was gonna say, there's a whole-ass rental car industry exactly for that kind of purpose. But this isn't the sort of thing you buy because it 'makes sense', you buy it because it's cool and you have fuck-you money so that's enough of a reason.
It's also that usual cars don't fall down on someone's head. And can just stay on one place for traffic jams.
Not possible until Star Wars style repulsors are created, and even then TBH not that cool.