Because it doesn’t run on batteries it runs on wishful thinking.
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Forget these apps and AI, where’s my flying car? Ah, here’s one with an FAA license
America’s Federal Aviation Administration has granted limited flight licenses to not one but two companies working on electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) craft, one of which could even be considered an actual flying car.
[…]
A simulated Alef Model A in simulated flight:
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Gimballed cockpit: do they remember the Boeing SST? In the end (IIRC) it came down to either being swing wing or taking passengers. Changing geometry of a vehicle needs heavy parts.
Batteries… I don’t see where those go. In the wings maybe? That’s going to make for some strange handling characteristics.
Mesh over the body is an atrocious idea. Mesh is how you generate homogeneous turbulence for wind tunnels. I don’t see how the top of the lower wing and bottom of the upper wing get the sort of near-laminar flow they’ll need to generate lift. Also, it seems somebody didn’t do the Fluid Dynamics 101 exercise where you compute the drag of the wire cross-bracing in an old school bi-plane and discover that it’s really quite a lot. This won’t be quite as bad as flying a 4x8’ sheet of plywood face on into the wind, but it’s going to be close.
Here’s something more practical and which has an actual flying prototype, takes off from water using hydrofoils.
https://www.oceanflyer.co.nz/videos
The plan is to offer ground-effect vehicle service between Whangārei and Auckland 
, about 130km over water versus 170km over land, for NZD 50 to 80.
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The wheels are full of helium, that reduces the weight of the thing by like 3/4, tho.
I get the impression that if they actually do have “tiny prototypes” working as claimed, they’re literally quadcopter drones stuck inside plastic shell RC car bodies with holes cut into them, and they’ve hand-waved everything else, like the gimballed cockpit, everything around the whole ground driving aspect, any aerodynamic considerations… But I also kind of doubt they even have the claimed tiny prototypes.
I assumed in that little cockpit, because why not? It’s like they just forgot about the batteries.
Ah, “the wings,” aka the bit that’s also the car body. The bits that look like the shapes were designed solely with the silhouette of the car in mind, not any kind of aerodynamics as wings. The things that also have doors cut out of each side (why, tho?: it doesn’t have the weight capacity for two people) and which is the bit that gets hit in any sort of traffic collision. Seems like the wheels are also attached to it, because they sure as hell aren’t connected to anything else in their images. I’m sure the doors and wheels hugely improve the aerodynamics.
Oh gods, I just rewatched the video after looking at their website. I’m pretty sure they’re pretending this will qualify as an “ultralight” aircraft (which normally would mean it was less than 255 pounds), but which also means it can only fly in uncontrolled airspace, which they actually allude to in the video. LOL.
Get out of here with your fancy-pants “functional prototypes” that aren’t “clearly unworkable”!
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Life Cereal gif… “I’m not gonna try it. You try it!”
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With those credentials, they should call it ‘The Dubai’.
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<wistful>Oh, the Moller SkyCar</wistful>. Who among us didn’t get sucked into that lie in our teenage years after seeing the flashy photos of the fake prototype.
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Popular Mechanics sold many an issue over the years putting some fanciful artist’s concept of a flying car on the cover every so often.
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I hate to say it, but ground effect vehicles are nearly as bad a vapourware as flying cars.
It’s been tried so many times over the years. Only the Soviets ever put them into serious use for any length of time, and only because they were willing to kill a lot of people for neato ideas.
Ground effect is one of those things that is so tempting because it seems like such a free lunch, but it’s dangerous and impractical once you get into the details. It’s essentially an airplane with zero margin for error that only works in perfect conditions, just to save a little fuel.
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… misquoting one of history’s biggest misquotes
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Ooooh, no. Don’t start that argument.
NASA records and Armstrong himself disagree about what was said, what was meant to be said, and their stories have both changed over the years. 
It’s at a point where you can find a version of historical record that lines up with what you think happened so nobody will ever agree.
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I’m still waiting for that smeggin’ spandex jacket.
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Now that we have those noisy but effective drones, it’s pretty clear that the only way we’ll ever have flying cars is if some kind of silent antigravity technology is invented. We’d also need self-driving car technology that actually works flawlessly (and in three dimensions too) to prevent flaming cars plummeting from the sky every couple minutes.
Or we’ll have flying cars available in two years, if you believe these chucklefucks. I’m sure it’s all true.
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The narration in the video was strangely incoherent in parts. I wondered if it had been poorly translated, but Alef’s website situates them in California. I guess their budget doesn’t run to a competent tech writer.
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Right but that perfectly describes the sweet spot for putting together a demo that lasts long enough for some investors to swoon and drop their wallets.
This particular flying car on the other hand is never going to make it to the full size demo phase.
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Text to Speech narration, ropey CGI, a flimsy looking design, pilot controlled urban aircraft, “saving individuals and companies hours each week”; ah, the sweet stench of dystopia.
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I think we are hearing an AI trying to pass the Turing Test, so it can crowdfund the Robopocalypse.
The AI for the Self-flying variant will utilize the latest breakthroughs in Woolly-thinking.
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Also imagining only the one flying car sailing through the valley, because if they’re available to even one person – there’s going to be a shit-ton of other folks trying to get one too. It’ll just be a big traffic jam in the sky. 
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