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
The “rent never own”/”rideshare” model that some tech bros are advocating. I really don’t want a car that someone else has used and left in whatever state they deem fit and then I request that car and it’s disgusting when I arrive.
I see how people treat those shared electric scooters (are those still a thing?) and I really don’t see it being remotely viable to scale that model up.
Similarly, the whole “You buy an electric skateboard car platform and have different bodies that you rent or buy” will NEVER happen. Where would you put the bodies not in use if you owned them and if you didn’t own them you question the state in which they were returned to wherever you go and switch the bodies. Absolutely ridiculous
Well, I thought the bodies were always stuffed in the trunk until you found a remote place to bury them…
I was always just friends with my local pig farmer
Monster Joe’s Truck and Tow up in the Valley has a car crusher and they don’t ask questions.
This. I got into a discussion with someone one time about not wanting a “shared” autonomous taxi thing. I literally had to explain that I wouldn’t be putting my kids/grandkids (by the time these are a reality) into a vehicle that may have just transported God-knows-who (or what). Think of how disgusting the transit systems in NYC regularly are and then add the privacy of an individual cabin. No thank you.
A complete rollback of all emissions, safety and fuel economy standards to “Take the big guv’mint jackboot off the throats of (corporate) Americans!”
Also “No Right To Repair”
Just wait for John Deere to get their lobbyists out in full force.
If a corrupt billionaire family can get an international bridge closed because they are worried that it’ll cut into their profits, I could see this easily happen.
Since their ploy is to pay off Trump to bluster “he would “not allow” a bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, to open until the U.S. is “fully compensated for everything we have given them, and, also importantly, Canada treats the United States with the Fairness and Respect that we deserve.” The Canadians should shut down the Ambassador Bridge for the exact same stated reasons and see how the Moron family likes that!
I can’t think of an idea worse than “flying cars” but cars that connect to the cloud are pretty bad.
Self washing cars would be good, why not that?
Well, it probably wouldn’t be the car that washes itself, since you don’t want it to have to carry around all the extra weight that gear would involve, but maybe cars might eventually have some tech to repel surface dirt. I’d be willing to pay extra for that, provided it didn’t have any moving parts so it’d be more likely to last the life of the car.
Please disconnect the cars from the cloud for the love of god
There are car software architecture infographics that include “cloud” as part of the car I hate it
Back in the early 90s there was a cloud shape on the plastic drawing template for computer and software design diagrams that was where data came from or went to, or was simply something that wasn’t part of the design.
We called it the fart in our office because it looked like a zap comix fart. Later at at IBM I heard someone talk about “the cloud “ and by way of explaining the woman running the project pointed at the drawing and said “not our fucking problem”
I still think Fart Computing would have been a catchy name.
Well, most of the bad ideas have already come around to some extent or another, so I’m not really sure if they can be called “future car ideas”. But anyway, flying cars, reinvented steering wheels, touch/haptic controls, excessive blindspots (the “killer pillar”), complete absence of steering or acceleration feel, brake by wire, electronic handbrakes, steer by wire, useless notifications (“ICY ROADS POSSIBLE”, “HOOD OPEN”, ads, etc), headlights that you can’t turn off, cylinder deactivation, sealed-for-life components…
Haptic controls are great, like having all the switches be a different shape so you can use them without looking at them. They are the opposite of touch screens, so of course people make touchscreens wiggle and call it haptic.
Haptic touch screens are to haptic controls s phone sex is to actual sex.
As an old fart w/ low tolerance for stupidity, I’m in favor of at least automatic lights. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve see a Toyota driver with nary a photon of light visible in dark, rainy conditions. Maybe the light switch to turn them off should be a subscription item.
I bristle at paying a subscription for Sirius radio; seat heaters, cruise control, remote start and any other features already built into the car on a subscription, no go for me.
Dashes that are always lit in cars that don’t have automatic lights should be banned with extreme prejudice. Maybe the Chinese will do that – they seem to be on a roll lately.
I see the opposite problem: cars that almost certainly have automatic lights, but they aren’t on (or their headlights are on, but their taillights aren’t. I don’t know who’s idea that was, but I hope they (almost) rear end someone because of it). And because the driver is conditioned to having the lights taken care of, and there’s typically no indicator of whether the lights are on or off when they’re set to auto, they don’t know and don’t care.
Some automakers have fixed that problem by having the lights on virtually all the time, but that’s not a perfect solution either. I know the data points to DRLs being safer than no lights during the day, but I’m not a believer. Maybe there’s something wrong with my eyes (doubtful, I have more or less perfect vision otherwise, not even astigmatism), but I have no problem seeing a car with its lights off in the day, and I can make out exactly what size & shape it is, and what its velocity is. But take that same vehicle and turn on the headlights, and now what my eyes are focusing on is two fuzzy balls of light. This is acceptable at night or in bad weather, as otherwise you wouldn’t be able to see the car at all, but in the daytime, it’s (IMHO) making it harder to see the car. Some vehicles are better/worse than others, but in general it’s not great. This is especially apparent when looking in the mirror, as a car driving along side of you can be mistaken for the sun.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it does sound like you have some form of astigmatism. I don’t even notice the lights during the day, and am able to stare directly into oncoming traffic at night and tell you what car is approaching based on the lights. I wear contacts, but don’t have any astigmatism.
To be honest, I wondered if maybe I had astigmatism, but I know there’s other stuff that’s really notorious for messing with people with astigmatism that doesn’t bother me at all. I probably should see an optometrist some day just so I know for sure, but when it isn’t really a problem…
And while I didn’t mean to, I might’ve made it sound worse than it is. It’s not so much that I can’t see the car when it’s lights are on, it’s just not what my eye naturally wants to focus on. Like, imagine a bad phone camera that wants to focus on the background instead of the item clearly centered in the frame. I too can identify some cars at night, but I think that’s as much remembering what the lights look like as it actually being able to see the car.
I mostly agree, but having lived in a place where the temperature could change dramatically in a short period of time and with relatively minor changes in elevation, I rather like the ice warning in my cars. No, you cannot always tell that a bridge is a sheet of wet black ice just by looking at it, but the Code Brown is for real when you hit that bridge without slowing down first.
I seriously don’t get the hate for auto stop/start and whatnot. But I live in the land fo five minute red-light cycles. I will admit, many implementations of it seem to suck, but the theory is fine, and it worked brilliantly in my stickshift BMW, as I had complete control over whether the engine would shut off or not.
My view of start/stop is similar (but not as negative) to that of cylinder deactivation: It’s perfect in theory, but in practice it has downsides, largely for the longevity of the drivetrain. Starting is harder on your engine, it’s harder on its mounts, both of those can carry over to the transmission, and of course, it puts wear on the starter.
Now like you said, some do it better than others, not only in the programming, but also in considering its affect on the hardware. I’m sure there are vehicles that handle it just fine, and it can make a difference in areas such as yours with long stops in traffic. But for all of the stink people are raising about net emissions for EVs, including manufacturing, it makes me wonder as well about the net emissions of modern ICE vehicles. If you have a vehicle whose lifespan is shortened by technologies such as cylinder deactivation or start/stop, then those emissions reductions technologies may have actually raised that vehicle’s net emissions for the amount of distance covered (not to mention net cost).
I like to think that decent engineers know what they are doing. The starters for BMWs and Mercedes that have stop/start are MASSIVE, and are outlasting the starters of those that don’t by quite a margin. Warm engines with direct injection take about nothing to start, in fact BMW has demonstrated that they can start without the starter motor at all – it’s just smoother to use the starter motor. Certainly my BMW that had it would start faster than I could put the clutch to the floor to put it back in gear.
I have far more important things to worry about.
You’ve mentioned just about everything I would have, and then some. Bravo. Someone else covered the “subscription” model.
Mileage-based registration fees that are verified via a black box. Insane invasion of privacy.
If you want to do mileage-based fees, it’s not a terrible idea, but it should be verified at an annual or bi-annual inspection.
The same goes with car insurance black boxes/OBD dongles – this already exists but should not be legal.
As a Californian who usually walks or bikes but owns thirsty vehicles, this would probably benefit me. But as with most things that our statehouse produces, the sausage-making and implementation are worrisome. Would they really axe the gas tax in favor of this, or would it be a “yes, and” way to improvise more revenue? How would older vehicles be taxed? We don’t have annual inspections… yet.
One super Californian thing about it is the way it’s being framed: “Don’t worry, this legislation doesn’t implement a mileage tax. It’s just the expensive study we’re going to ignore before we implement a mileage tax.”
https://www.cbs8.com/article/news/local/san-diego-economist-breaks-down-california-mileage-tax/509-efdcb296-06ce-43ae-911c-872fa65afc25
https://cal.streetsblog.org/2026/02/10/another-conspiracy-theory-this-one-around-a-vehicle-miles-tax-comes-to-california
I fail to see the difference. In the state I own cars that are subject to annual inspection, the car that gets inspected is already subject to the odometer being inspected and recorded. And you are SUPPOSED to accurately report the mileage when you register all of them. Having the car do it for me would save some bother, and as long as it is only saying how far and not where, I could not possibly care less. Especially if it saves me money on a couple cars I barely drive. I was in Maine yesterday for the day and insured and drove my Disco I around all day. Probably put 50 miles on it. It won’t turn a wheel again until July, most likely. But I still pay a full year’s registration on it every year, and in Maine that is not cheap.
Consider emissions tests: If a car’s telematics saved me from the hassle and cost of smog checks by simply letting me know if it’s running clean and giving me the option to send that data to the DMV, I’d be thrilled.
Connected cars are already black boxes that, like our phones, are beyond our control in many ways. In an environment where authorities act first and sort out legal questions later, ethical acceptability and strict permission are just fences to be tested.
The TV show Mr. Robot had a scene in which Bobby Cannavale’s character used basic tech and social engineering to get away from an FBI Yukon mid-chase:
https://youtu.be/BpWGxGDnYPI?si=WCFJVBk5UOipis9W
Yes, that was just a show, but GM isn’t saying it’s outside the range of possibility:
https://www.onstar.com/services/stolen-vehicle-assistance#:~:text=When%20it's%20safe%2C%20we'll,protection%20team%20has%20your%20back.
My nomination is the digital bumper sticker (“It’s her birthday today!”).
They’ll probably just be used to display whatever someone’s screaming at the dashboard, but that’s unfair to AFEELA, because pretty much everything they’re pushing sounds upsetting. The entire conceit is exactly what’s not working with most people’s attitude toward cars, which is why it might work.
“Autonomous. Sound. Visual.”
“Immersive theater on wheels – powered by stunning 360 audio technology.”
“Entertainment, upscaled audiovisual experience.”
“The Media Bar [AKA the bumper sticker thingy] – a window to interact with your vehicle.”
None of that has anything to do with driving, but that’s a vanishing concern.
Automotive enthusiasts *enjoy* driving. For us, a car is an instrument. It has character, but like any tool, it disappears when it’s being used well. Driver, car, and road are trying to harmonize. Ask an enthusiast what a car’s most important part is and we’ll probably say “tires” because that answer best acknowledges the critical physics of driving: Tires are our only direct connection to the road. Someone who views their car as another necessary appliance thinks it’s utterly batshit to care about tires at all.
This is a major rift in the future of cars: People who don’t like driving are going to get the cars they want. That might even become the standard, although I have doubts about how standard it could be. Still, I expect the future of cars to be more “personal box you sit in to go places” than “machine you enjoy operating.”
P.S. – Jason touched on it very recently, but at the risk of killing off potential ad income from Sony Honda Mobility, I’d love a deeper dive on those AFEELA ads. They’re like AI-generated David Lynch bits that raise so many more questions than answers. Why *is* that guy crying? Do you *really* want every passing rando to know her date of birth? Is that toy car a fair trade for a Sony camera? It’s like a trailer for Mulholland Drive, but with a link to preorder an $80K vehicle.
“I wish I could drive everywhere, all the time,” was the wish on the monkey’s paw; the curse is that the roads are now clogged with people who would rather be doing anything else but driving and the market consumed by the greyscale behemoths that they find the most tolerable.
Enthusiasts can choke each other out too. At this point, a motorcycle is pretty much the only way to see much of car week in Monterey because there are far, far too many people driving around. The sheer volume of traffic and parked cars makes trying to attend more than a couple events in a day borderline impossible if you’re not a VIP.
To recap thus far and then some: Self Driving Cars, Flying Cars, More Touchscreens, Cybercabs, Subscriptions to Enable my Heated Seats or anything else in a new car, Steering Yokes, Advertising on my Screens, More Screens, and More Pollutants to Breathe in thanks to his Assholiness the King of Beautiful Clean Coal.
King of coal? Xi Jenping? Since China uses 6 times more coal than the US and is trending higher, India does too.
OK, so he’s not King, just the Undisputed Champion according to the CEO of Peabody Energy and the Washington Coal Club…
https://www.nj.com/politics/2026/02/trump-adds-another-trophy-to-his-roster-undisputed-champion.html
President Donald Trump has added another shiny award to his cabinet of trophies that have just been invented, after being named “Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal.”
“Clean beautiful coal. We love clean beautiful coal, don’t we?” the president said, kicking off an event at the White House Wednesday.
Ah “clean” coal I missed the “clean” part. Probably because it will never work, he is therefore the king of nothing.
Indeed!
Xi isn’t the one trying to emergency re-open a coal plant against its planned shutdown in Washington right now…
Pretty sure China has been at least trying to move away from coal ever since they had winters where they had to choose between people dying from extreme air pollution if they ran the plants, and people dying from cold if they didn’t.
Yeah, that’s some bullshit whataboutism. Since when did “not as bad as China” become the low, low bar we are trying to clear?
I think fixed wing flying cars like the one above have a place. I always imagined they would only be considered by existing private pilots. You can keep it in your garage rather than pay for hangerage at your local airfield. You just drive there, set up, take off, fly somewhere nice, land (at another airfield), put put back into car mode and go for a nice drive and not just be constricted to the whole ‘$100 hamburger’ situation. Eg you are still taking off and landing at an airfield but you have a lot more flexibility to explore at each end. Commuting? Nope, that’s fantasy.
If, like most private pilots, you are renting the plane, it’s the $250 burger at the destination fbo.
My flying lessons with an instructor were 360 AUD an hour in a 172 a few years ago. I love aviation but private flying seems very expensive especially if you are tooling around burning 100LL av fuel pouring whatever nasties into the atmosphere just so you can get an expensive burger at one of the 5 strips in range of your Piper.
A bit off topic, but imagine if it were mandatory to display your current speed in large, illuminated numbers on a license plate-sized screen at both the front and rear of your car, with the reading confirmed by GPS and verified by the state if needed. Being caught tampering with the system would mean a lifetime drivers license ban. Police could simply park and pull over anyone exceeding the limit. It could be useful for pedestrians and motorcyclists who find it hard to judge a vehicle’s speed.
Bright neon-colored seat belts made mandatory to make it easier to spot anyone not wearing one.
I could go for a a display of kinetic energy, speed squared times mass.
A 6IN spike in the middle of the steering wheel would get the point across better.
Bright colored seats belts are already quite common in commercial vehicles.
I’ll be honest, I struggle to see the benefits of an existential speedometer.
Touchscreens in cars.
Underrated comment.
Touchscreens are fine for the radio and uncommonly used settings. It’s the overuse of touchscreens that’s a problem.
I’ll accept a din based touchscreen radio that the owner chose. If it’s not interchangeable than no.
I don’t even like them for that. I can do everything I need to do in a car with two knobs, a two line display, and a small row of buttons, as my two BMWs have. Including adjust myriad car settings as premium cars tend to have.
Since I am in the industry, at least one (us) and probably lots of other eVTOL companies have quietness at a very high priority. I was in a crowd of 2000 people with our eVTOL flying by. The crowd was louder than the aircraft. Conventional heliports are excited about the future introduction of eVTOLS specifically due to the quietness. People in proximity to heliports hate helicopoters due to the noise.
Living under a flyway, albeit mostly smaller craft, I can hear helicopters thumping from a long way off. I don’t particularly mind, but a switch to a quieter eVTOL would be welcome.
Nice to have an insider amongst the membership. I live two blocks from a hospital heliport. It’s three or four stories up on top of one of their buildings. Depending on which way the wind is blowing they sometimes fly right over my residence. By sound alone, I can tell whether it’s an Airbus EC-145 or a Bell 407 coming in. I often can’t even hear them start up and take off.
I also live about 10 miles from an Army airfield. Some of their stuff can be heard several miles away in cruise flight.
I used to live near Miramar right around the time the Navy handed the place over to the Marines. The Navy’s fighter jets screaming overhead was one thing but oy, those rotorcraft!
I went to UCSD, so I’m familiar with the area. Last time I was in the area, for business, I stayed at a hotel near the air station. They were doing some nighttime training in the V-22 Osprey tiltrotors. Those things are surprisingly loud, even on the ground with no load on the rotors.
One of my longtime clients! Love that school.
Ospreys are ridiculously loud. Fly over my house in FL all the time, usually in formations, and given I live nowhere near any sort of military base I have no idea why.
Something, something, war on drugs perhaps?
Maybe? Though I suppose over my house IS the direct route from NAS Key West to the AFB near Tampa.
Flying cars are best summed up with the phrase “I would love to have one, but I don’t want you to have one”. I can trust myself, but everyone else?
I can’t even trust myself with one.
Once again, the Onion is there: https://theonion.com/report-98-percent-of-u-s-commuters-favor-public-trans-1819565837/
Brilliant! You can always rely on the Onion.
@Spikersaurusrex – Haha!
That’s why they’ll need to be heavily armed. “Look, honey, that nutso down the street just got a SkyCamry with SIX hardpoints. We’re going to need the advanced air-to-air package. Plus it comes with heated and cooled ejection seats!”
The Tesla Cybercab with no physical controls
Instead of going forward, lets go back to the Flinstones car. Two Foot ABS, Panoramic Roof, no A/C slowing you down.
You could even let the top down on a nice day…
I got to drive a OEM soapbox car once. Carbon chassis, disc brakes, great aero. No engine.
I drove it for over a mile from the top of a small hill. It was a great drive, even had a few little oversteer slides from flicking it in to turns.
Driving something less complicated than a bicycle can be extremely rewarding.
Takata airbags.
Transcontinental road races to the death. Though in fairness, it might be the French that makes it necessary.
Too bad the guy was only thirty-eight; just two years older, he’d have been worth three times the points.
Steering yokes.
(dangit, too late)
So the Driver’s Ed cars would be double yokers?
Subscription everything is pure dystopian hell. As are ads everywhere. The flying cars are interesting maybe play things for rich. The drone licence and insurance in many countries says all you need to know. Regulated because a few bad eggs caused issues.
Ads on my dash screen. “McBoogies at next exit. Need a break?”
Self driving cars.
I don’t so much disagree as feel obliged to qualify my agreement.
I don’t want self-driving cars to entirely supplant the kind we’re used to piloting. However, “self-driving” cars already exist and drive themselves nearly as much as is practical. Here are some upsides of cars doing more of the driving:
-There are few aspects of American highways as widely loathed as our lack of lane discipline. Self-driving could help there. Imagine passing a cohesive group of cars instead of being blocked by a dispersed mass of inconsiderate or unaware drivers.
-Drowsy and inebriated driving are commonplace and lethal. A lot of people are still terrible drivers while wide awake and perfectly sober.
-Even enthusiasts dread a boring drive. You shouldn’t be able to take a nap at the wheel, but you can already relax while on standby.
I hate the prospect of all cars on the road being hivemind-controlled pods. I’m also reasonably confident that this isn’t a likely outcome. The potential ownership and liability aspects of private vehicles entirely controlled by shared systems are very hard to reconcile with how we own and maintain responsibility for things. If all automobiles do away with drivers, we’ll have basically reinvented light rail as a dispersed technology, and that’s another thing entirely.
TLDR: Being able to drive your own car is going to be around for a while.
I will admit that I kinda agree with Lizardman’s statement.
I would buy a car that can 100% do the driving on Interstate slogs while I read a book or nap. Until that point, not interested. If I have to pay attention, then I am just going to drive the damned thing.
I don’t want a self driving car… until im to old to safely drive. So if they are ready in 30 years, perfect for me
The problem with self driving cars is that first they need self driving roads.
Those are called railways and they don’t even need AI to work
Like the article, flying cars. Most people can’t handle x/y axis. Throw in Z and chaos ensues. Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together—mass hysteria!
I really don’t want 8 inch spikes that come out of the steering wheel when you brake hard.
Come visit Houston, where we put those on all four wheels
Luckily they don’t allow those in the airport. (The only place in Houston I have been recently)
That’s the chocolate creme surprise option
“I’m sorry, your subscription has not been paid. Here are the nearest ATM in a 20 mile radius.”
Full self driving is never going to happen outside of a tightly controlled road/highway, and maybe not even then.
Gleaming alloy air-cars. I hope they never come to pass.
You mean the ones two lanes wide?
Eh, just lose them at the one lane bridge.
Yeah, once you’re back at the farm with uncle, I think you’re in the clear.
What’s weird is they never explain where the gas and other consumables for the Barchetta come from. You’d think after the motor law was passed car stuff like gasoline and tires would be hard to come by. And what does the farm run on? Are the tractors gleaming alloy air too? Are they back to oxen? Serfs?
In fairness, the song is like 2 and half minutes long. 😉
Songs CAN have sequels.
Come on Rush! Get on it!
They are back I understand, so not a bad idea at all. But knowing them, they’d give us 2212 or something.
I thought that was the implication of it being on a rural farm. They can make ethanol or methanol to keep the cars running. Runs on white lightning!
Its possible but given the line “I strip away the old debris” I dunno how long that ethanol may have been sitting in the tank. Might be OK if uncle threw in some fuel stabilizer.
“He says it used to be a farm, before the Motor Law”
And yeah, probably a combination of stockpiled gasoline (I hear gas used to keep a lot better) and alcohol for fuel. As for tires, they’d be a little tough, but IIRC the “red barchetta” is a Ferrari 155, which would be on bias ply tires, which actually do a really good job of staying round.
Fair points. Except perhaps about the tires. My own white haired uncle didn’t have a red Barchetta but he DID have a white Jaguar of similar vintage to the Barchetta still sporting ancient Red line bias ply tires. He hated driving that Jag so much it sat in his garage for fifty odd years just like the Barchetta. I don’t think I’d have trusted those ancient tires to make it past the driveway.
Not saying they’re great, but the white walls on my grandpa’s ’57 Ford Fairlane are 30-35 years old, and they get the job done. We really should replace them anyway, but they hold air, there’s no cracks, and at the moment that car would be doing well to get 100 miles put on it in a year, cruising to shows.
Alternatively, maybe the uncle got his white hairs by stealing tires from the government.
Air cars don’t have tires so that’s not too likely.