In the world of cars, tech, and industry, it feels as if there is a new, wacky, seemingly impossible-to-achieve idea from a start-up brand at least once a quarter. Some of these ideas are great and would make the world of cars a better place. But there are others I hope will stay on the drawing board forever. I’d love to know if you agree with me, and learn what other ideas about the “car of the future” you hope won’t come true.
Cars today are already pretty damn advanced. Compared to 10 years ago, the type of tech you can find in today’s vehicles is astounding. There are self-driving systems, artificial intelligence interfaces, gobs of active safety tech, and so much more that weren’t available to the public just a short while ago. Given how quickly the world of technology advances, I suspect there will be many more groundbreaking new ideas and features making their way to production in the near future. But not all of them should.
For me, two obvious examples stick out in my mind. The first are flying cars. Whether we’re talking about fixed-wing machines that look like small planes with wheels, or the more popular multi-rotor VTOL-type aircraft, I really don’t see a world where people are trading in their land vehicles for stuff that can fly through the air anytime soon.
For the fixed-wing stuff, everyone would need to get a pilot’s license, which definitely isn’t happening. The VTOL machines—which, to me, are just small helicopters—are a bit more feasible thanks to advances in autonomy and remote control. Even if these vehicles are electric, they’re still loud as heck. I wouldn’t want a thousand of them buzzing above my home at all hours of the day; it’d drive me insane.
The other “car of the future” feature I hope never gets traction is the idea of cars as a subscription. This is already happening with car features, like in-car internet connectivity and stuff like General Motors’ SuperCruise. Porsche and Volvo have dabbled with this in the past, but those programs were quietly shut down. I suspect it’s only a matter of time until the rise of widespread autonomy means programs like that are back on the table, though.
I’d like to hear it from you. When you picture your ideal “car of the future,” which features do you hope won’t be included?
Top graphic image: Glowing Ray / YouTube
Flying cars will be high on the list, but since we’ve essentially had flying cars for decades (helicopters) I’ll skip that one. The physics of displacing enough air for a vehicle large enough to fly even one human means that flying cars will always be highly impractical for use in private homes.
I can’t say I’m entirely looking forward to fully autonomous cars. I think I would rather see more effort put into better light rail, subway and other public transit systems. I think the cost benefit ratio is way better and fewer resources would need to be mined from the earth. Li-ion, while a huge leap forward in power delivery have a host of issues and aren’t remotely ideal in areas that have long, very cold winters.
Living in the North and having just come out of months of snow, ice and cold I can tell you flying cars is a terrible idea. No one would want or be able to de-ice their car just to commute to and from work. Not to mention all of the idiots that can’t seem to put down their phone on the ground! I would not want to be anywhere near one of these distracted “pilots” if they could fly.
Flying cars would be #1. I’m glad that they have been nothing more than a pipe dream my whole life. First of all, enough people have issues operating a car safety in 2 dimensions, let alone 3. And cars break all the time. On the ground it’s usually an inconvenience. In the air would be a death sentence for not only the occupants, but anyone else they cross paths with on the way down. At least from what I was taught in engineering school, aircraft have a safety factor of less than one. Otherwise they would be too heavy to get off the ground. They rely on strict maintenance to keep them safe to operate. How many car owners are going to do that? Considering all the “required safety features” built into modern cars just for 2 dimensions, a flying car for the average person would not be usable.
I personally want flying cars to happen because I want every day to be a small-scale 9/11.
Pretty much all inevitable, but:
The whole auto industry is a Torment Nexus now as far as I’m concerned. If I wasn’t following Slate Auto, I probably wouldn’t follow automotive news at all just because it’s all depressing and frustrating. Self-driving, touchscreens, voice controls, any worse forms of surveillance and connected services they haven’t invented yet…
Also, flying cars are an inherently stupid idea.
Acceleration by gravity is 9.8 m/s^2.
Why would you ever add that constant energy cost to operating a vehicle? Why pay to overcome gravity when the ground is free?
Oh. How could I forget?
The future nightmare: Cars you can’t use without an online account.
I haven’t needed an online account to use my computer for years, so I forget about this, but modern computers generally demand an online account (and the workarounds are being closed off). I think with software-defined vehicles and all, it will sooner or later become normal that you can’t use your car without an account from the automaker. Or maybe they’ll let you login with Google instead….
This is why all my personal computers run Linux, I have one laptop kicking around that dual boots with Windows, but I’m not sure where I actually put it 🙂
Even my 13 year old begged me to not make him use Windows when I gave him my old gaming laptop, he gave up playing Fortnite to be free of Windows on his personal gaming laptop. Was a pretty proud moment for me.
Oof, apparently Fortnite’s anti-cheat is so invasive that it can’t even be run in WINE. That’s obnoxious.
It feels like just last week was another rant about the 2025 BMW 318d I drove for a year.
Without an online account, you could not:
Well I Was never going to be a new BMW driver, but I’m definitely not going to be after all their connected features shenanigans. At least with UConnect you can opt out without loosing any functionality of the vehicle aside from SmartPhone App functions.
I also never use the built in nav anyways, but still..
lol. But seriously, it’s the same reason why we have normal helicopters and airplanes: the ground has limitations. A car would have to drive through, over, or around a hill. An aircraft can simply fly over it. A big car needs a big road, while the air has no real size constraint. Want to go northwest, but the roads only go east/west & north/south? Too bad, unless you can fly like the crows.
To be clear, I’m not saying flying cars are a good idea, just that the trade off of cost for flexibility has already been deemed acceptable by some.
I see what you mean.
I’m also somewhat opposed to the current scale of commercial aviation, so I guess it makes sense I’d be even more opposed to an extreme version of that “tradeoff”.
Touchscreens and battery packs. “Self-driving” less capable than me taking a nap on Interstates.
Thing I do’t want to happen.
Only the very wealthy can buy new cars and we plebes are stuck with ever worsening used cars.
And as everyone else says. People suck at driving in 2 dimentions please do not add a third.
I’m 66 years old and have bought one new car (a first generation Impreza) out of the dozens of great used cars I’ve owned over the years. I’ve also managed to get a certificate to fly private airplanes, and quickly discovered they are more for recreation than transportation. Unless the weather is ideal for both the trip and the return trip it’s usually better to just drive. If you can afford a fully instrument rated plane, and can afford to get and maintain an instrument endorsement for flying in the clouds it can work for transportation, but I don’t know a lot of pilots that do that. I don’t see flying cars happening unless there is a major technological breakthrough, like anti-gravity, and automated navigation. I wouldn’t hold my breath.And unless you have money to burn, it’s always better to buy second hand cars.
There are plenty of people driving without a drivers license so I would have to think that would also be the case with flying cars.
Not all drivers and pilots make it to their destination.
With the new roof and having to add the flying car option on the home insurance, I say NO to flying cars.
You’d be surprised how many people buy an airplane, get enough training to solo, then never finish training. There were enough of them that the FAA made is so a solo permit expires after 90 days. Too many people were flying around on solo permits, and never finishing training.
Unless you have a DeLorean with a hover conversion, a flying car makes as much sense as smartphone-toaster all in one.
Cars and aircraft rely on and are engineered around unrelated and sometimes opposite conditions and constraints
I am willing to consider optional subscriptions for in-vehicle services where providing the service incurs some ongoing cost on the part of the provider – NEVER where the functionality is already built into the car (ie heated seats).
Also I will never accept advertisements on my dashboard.
If your car has no display screen, not much chance of it displaying ads. Just sayin’…
I’m sure someone already stated this obviousness, but I for one am not looking forward to the widespread adoption of truly driverless cars. I just honestly don’t trust ’em. I’ve been online/using computers since the 1970s, and spent a couple decades working in digital visual effects for film, which involves all kinds of image processing of course, and all of my experience using computers, the ‘net, and working with images does not fill me with confidence when it comes to self-driving cars.
Because people are often so inattentive, I don’t doubt that eventually, self-driving cars might become statistically safer than human-driven ones. However, no matter how many cameras and sensors and computers it has, a car will never understand what it’s looking at. I could act like it does, until the time comes when it inevitably doesn’t.
But I’m an old(er) person, and chances are pretty good that I’ll be gone well before auto manufacturers are offering cars with truly driverless point-to-point capabilities in all weather and on all roads. So, I probably won’t have to experience that particular dystopia myself. I also happen to be in that tiny minority that thinks all cellphone use ought to be curtailed when driving: no making/answering calls or texts at all. It’s fine for the phone to be connected to the car to provide music, or navigation instructions, etc… but I really don’t think the average driver can safely afford the attention deficit incurred when using a device to communicate while driving.