Futuristic Cars in Science Fiction

[@mutanix]

The irony of Doc Brown saying "where we're going, we don't need roads". Only to get to the future and have to worry about the skyway being jammed.

[@TetsuShima]

The flying cars scene of "Attack of the Clones" is comedy gold. Imagine being in your airspeed on a Coruscant night, minding your own business while driving thousands of miles above the air, and then two Jedi just appear out of nowhere and treat your vehicle like a Mario Bros. platform. Sure those drivers cursed all the ancestors and descendants of Obi-Wan and Anakin at that single moment 😅

[@shanenolan5625]

Jedi podo

[@arcturionblade1077]

Something something pod racing...

[@timogul]

Something Something Captain America: Civil War.

[@IAmEvilTree]

Keep off! My speeder insurance doesn't cover Jedi tomfoolery!

[@Napoleonic_S]

that's why the sith is the better side! there's only 2 of them! no need to fear random jedi falling from the sky!

[@sellsword]

The lack of flying pedestrians for flying car accidents is unrealistic

[@USSAnimeNCC-]

What about flying dog to.go front of flying cars or flying trains that the flying cars have to wait for before crossing

[@CantankerousDave]

Strap balloons to ‘em.

[@Novenae_CCG]

I'm Dutch, and I'm appalled at the lack of flycycle representation.

[@VaticDart]

Flying car drivers would manage to kill tens of thousands of people a year regardless of whether there’s flying peds or not. Crashing into buildings. Crashing into the ground. Crashing into flying infrastructure. Etc… What we’d need are flying bollards.

[@Commander_Raveth]

You're right. Ima built a rocket suit and "walk" my dog.

[@Narutonarutonaruto85]

7:07 To be fair, once you get a certain number of flying cars you need to have some way to regulate them so they don't crash into each other all the time. I could see them being restricted to certain paths to avoid accidents. Especially when the buildings are too tall to fly over. The reason why we have so few airplanes crashing into each other is because of the relatively small number of them and we can better keep them away from each other.

[@brodriguez11000]

Higher standards both in planes and staff.

[@hoojiwana]

Perhaps we could cut down on the number of flying cars by combining ones going to the same destination into some sort of high capacity super car. - hoojiwana from Spacedock

[@silverjohn6037]

Not to mention mandatory inspections and maintenance requirements to keep them airworthy so they're not just dropping out of the sky because someone didn't keep the oil topped up. Makes me think they'd only be used in urban centers as taxis with AI controls instead of a pilot. Possibly even linked to a central control hub to manage the flightpaths.

[@DrTssha]

​@@hoojiwana Like some kind of...super sky bus...an Airbus, if you will. 🤔

[@MalloonTarka]

@@hoojiwana Trains really are the crabs of civil engineering, aren't they?

[@kongilian]

You opened this can of worms, now I need a vehicle breakdown of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Your fault for bringing up my favorite childhood movie.

[@Bird_Dog00]

5:53 Tat reminds me of something. During WW2, many civilian cars were modified to run on wood gas (take wood and heat it in a sealed container. A flamable gas will be released through a process called pyrolysis) as gasoline was in short supply. The usually ended up having something that looks like a cross between a potbelly stove and a still at the back with pipes running to the engine comparment. I guess that's sort of what they were going for in this scene.

[@fisk0]

yeah, that was what I first thought of as well

[@thomasfplm]

And the diesel engine was originally designed to work with plant oils, but it was later altered to be more efficient with a petroleum derivative and now we have to develop a specific kind of plant bases oil to adequately work with it (biodiesel). In Brazil, diesel has 12% of biodiesel in it.

[@sargon6000]

This video really needs a Part 2. There are so many other things that could be discussed about cars in fiction. -The super-car that has an entire arsenal of weaponry and bizarre high tech gadgets: every James Bond car, KITT from Knight Rider, the Viper from its TV series, etc. -Crash protection systems: most fiction avoids them, but there is one such system in Demolition Man, where the car basically engulfs you in a special foam, like a high tech all-around airbag. -Amphibious cars: not very practical (or cheap) with current technology, but they often appear in fiction since it allows more freedom in the story. As an addendum, I should add normal looking cars, but powered by something else that appears plausible, but in hindsight, it's a bad idea. I recall one British TV series, forgot its name, where in one episode someone has the genius idea of developing a self-driving car powered by a small RTG (Radioisotope thermoelectric generator), and the villain of the week wants to turn it into a dirty bomb or something, been a long time and don't recall all the details.

[@scifirealism5943]

Yes. A thorium car could be turned into a cobalt dirty bomb.

[@scifirealism5943]

Would you drive an antimatter powered car?

[@sargon6000]

@@scifirealism5943ZPM-powered car. Can last for millions of years.

[@3Rayfire]

@@scifirealism5943 Like I'd drive a Pinto. Not at all.

[@3Rayfire]

"What happened, all of a sudden this car turned into a cannoli."

[@GraniteGhost778]

Honestly the flying cars following specified lanes makes sense in my mind because you would need to have designated flight patterns to prevent just random chaos. Not as strictly as we see in Episode 2 perhaps, but having designated fly zones does make sense considering that we do that with planes currently where they are given designated flight corridors to avoid collisions.

[@codyraugh6599]

Shhhh, you know that New Yorkers and Boston traffic won't understand that concept, after all isn't someone's eight story living room and a landing pad one and the same thing?

[@blueberry1vom1t]

Inventor: YES I HAVE FINALLY SOLVED TRAFFIC FOREVER WITH THESE FLYING CARS Regulators: Yeah we're gonna need regulated flying car lanes. Narrator: And thus, we have arrived back where we started, traffic is still terrible, but now it's harder to get a clear view of the sky. And occasionally a drunk driver recreates 9-

[@kyriss12]

@@blueberry1vom1t the old roads however were never clearer and many motorcycle and muscle car enthusiasts can be seen laughing like mental patients as they cruise up and down the road at breakneck speed.

[@kaitlyn__L]

My favourite example of (near-)spherical wheels with in/on wheel motors AND needless hollow interior has to be in Tron Legacy. Yes, it’s mostly bikes - but there’s exactly one car with the same wheels!

[@TetsuShima]

6:08 Never thought I would see footage of the anime "Phoenix: Future" in this channel. For those who don't know, it's an amazing underrated OVA that brilliantly adapts one of the arcs of Osamu Tezuka's manga "Hi no Tori", the magnum opus of his career. In this story, the crew of a ship stranded in the middle of space discover to their horror, after waking up from the suspended animation due to a fatal crash the ship suffers, the tied corpse of the only member of the group who stayed awake to supervise them. After escaping to the space pods, the characters spend most of the plot inside these claustophobic capsules in the middle of the space, trying to deduce who (or what) could have killed them. I REALLY reccomend this anime, not only because his story, but also because his amazing animation and ost

[@westrim]

Maybe it came up in the prior video on escape pods, so they got more footage from it?

[@matteste]

This is one of the reasons I like Spacedock so much. Unlike so many other Sci-Fi channels, Eastern and animated sci-fi is given a spotlight and and treated as just as viable as Western live action stuff. It even includes some more obscure sources at times. So many other channels only ever seem to bring up Eastern and animated sci-fi to mock it.

[@oneoneonefour]

Any idea where this could be bought or watched? I'm not into anime but your description makes me want to see this.

[@Marylandbrony]

As a world builder, this is much more useful than most other topics you do as it’s not military related. I’m actually going to do a 3 tier system of a Metro (Based on Washington D.C’s system), a series of self driving cars with non-rubber wheels on a glass like surface that allows for high speed but safe travel and flying cars for the corporate elite. But also self driving to prevent people from slamming them into their bosses house.

[@mattrobson3603]

Why a glass-like surface for the roads, and why non-rubber wheels?

[@fluffly3606]

That's probably the more realistic primary motivator than preventing slamming into each other, even tho the latter is the biggest benefit

[@Marylandbrony]

@@fluffly3606 I was speaking specifically and preventing crashes in general. I was treating it as a sort of sitcom style scenario and the whole flying cars thing reminded me of a discussion I had in a High School philosophy class about flying cars and how flying cars could easily be repurposed for acts of terrorism.

[@thomasfplm]

About the flying cars sticking to specific lines, it can easily be explained by the city not wanting people taking random directions and colliding into each other, so you have rules about where can you fly, and maybe it uses a kind of 3d GPS to know that you are in the allowed lanes. It would still have the advantage that you could have more lanes than on the ground by staking multiple layers "streets" widout having to build a bunch of bridges on top of one another.

[@cocacola4blood365]

Flying cars are like lightsabers, they look cool but if we had them we'd be in the hospital or the morgue in a week.

[@stevenscott2136]

That Robocop car was intended to look tacky. In the mid-1980's, Detroit made "prestige" cars by tacking on assorted crap to ordinary sedans and basically charging you for plastic and decals. The 6000 SUX was meant to be a continuation of that trend into the future.

[@brunocesarcerqueira2525]

Excellent theme. It was my passion for cars, and drawing them as a child and seeing them in sci-fi films that led me to become interested in science fiction and science in general. And of course, also for drawing, art and design.

[@nemesis7774]

Proud of seeing Michelin in a Spacedock video !

[@Gregsus12345]

Spacedock's humor and down-to-earthiness are a rare quality in youtubers. Keep up the good work!

[@Shield-Theyden]

I always loved the idea of the computerized array of spokes in Snow Crash. Sure, it's way more complicated and has more points of failure, but you can ride over damn near any terrain because the spokes just mold around it.

[@urgo224]

Tbh I feel flying cars def have a place in scifi. Even irl as you would probably just have to get a special license and training for them just like a regular pilots license.

[@friendlyspacedragon7250]

It's good to remember the saying about reinventing the wheel when designing your futuristic sci-fi wheel. Some artistic liberty is fine but even so it has to make some degree of sense. A good example of a bad design is in the Cyclone vehicle from Star Citizen. The wheels have tires and the rim but no solid attachment to the hub with enough free space for another hub to fit within the rim. The whole thing is held together with gravity and power transmission is through the matching gear teeth on the rim and the hub, which makes absolutely no sense on an off-road vehicle.

[@TetsuShima]

*Fun fact:* Speaking of Blade Runner's flying car, you can actually see the remains of one of these vehicles in the movie "Soldier", which takes place in the same universe

[@timogul]

Hover cars would only make sense if building roads was not available, and the hover method was more stable than wheels over rough terrain. Luke's land speeder, for example, would be more efficient at crossing desert sands at speed than any car could be. The speeder bikes more efficient at driving through deciduous rainforests. As for flying vehicles following flight lanes, so long as they were _reasonably_ safe from crashing into structures, it would make some sense, as you could have 3 dimentional traffic flows, not only changing lanes horizontally, but also vertically to reduce horizontal traffic. A 20-lane highway could instead be a 4x5 one. The use of discrete lanes keeps things organized, as the same cars just zooming around at random would almost certainly hit each other regularly, while if they only made lane changes with fair warning, it would be relatively safe from a traffic perspective. Plus you could of course _leave_ the fixed flight lanes as needed, with appropriate permissions (which would likely be only for short distances, like the last half-block or to change lanes).

[@moteroargentino7944]

What about a hybrid between hover cars and regular cars? You would drive them in "ground mode" at slow speeds, and switch to "hover mode" while cruising or to cover difficult terrain. That would also mean that you could equip them with beefier and wider wheels designed more like a landing gear meant only for stopping, maneuvering and parking, rather than do-it-all wheels from regular cars.

[@steemlenn8797]

Afaik all the startups that promised those 5-10 years ago have disappeared. Now it's XXL drones for flying taxis.

[@dakaodo]

For current and near-future levels of extrapolated hypothetical engineering and manufacturing capability, it's 1) too expensive, 2) too heavy, 3) too mechanically complex. With a limited budget for weight, power, and cost, better to make a vehicle that does what it's supposed to do, and do it well. When your hybrid is flying, it's lugging along an extra... 500+ lbs (200-ish kg) for just the tires, wheels, axles. Even more weight if there are any significant driveshaft/adaptor components used in ground driving that aren't used in the hover/flight mode. That's a lot of dead weight that eats into your flight mode payload (easily 3 passengers). Not as bad as full-sized wheels and drivetrain, but still puts a ding in how many groceries you can carry. If vehicle power sources are significantly cheaper, lighter, more efficient, powerful, etc then maybe. After all, as modern early 21st century cars have gotten more efficient and powerful engines, manufacturers have expanded vehicle sizes and weights for luxury cars, pickup trucks, SUVs, and crossovers (aided and abetted by regulatory differences that favor trucks over passenger cars). Just like hard drive space, the more capacity you have, the more crap people will fill it up with.

[@Mythilt]

It should be pointed out that Cyberpunk's usage of the term 'Aerodyne' isn't a marketing / manufacturer's name. It is the actual term for any heavier than air flying vehicle that uses vectored thrust for its flight rather than an aerodynamic surface (stationary or rotary wing)

[@JDSleeper]

The Starcar from The Last Starfighter was my first love "future car". I mean, it changed into an FTL-capable shuttle!

[@brokenursa9986]

4:54 You can have an internal combustion engine mounted in the wheel, but it would necessarily need to be a radial or preferably rotary (not Wankel) engine, although both have a lot of problems and are incredibly outdated. Radial engines fell out of favor broadly around 60-70 years ago, and were already exceptionally rare in cars, being primarily used for aircraft. Rotary engines are even more outdated, with the most recent examples I'm aware of being 100 years old. Again, they were rarely if ever used in cars, but they did see some use in hub mounts on early motorcycles. However, both were prone to hydrolocking due to the oil flowing down into the lower cylinders at rest, and rotaries specifically were difficult to throttle, generally using systems like a choke and clutch to reduce power and prevent power delivery to the wheels when stopped, respectively.

[@be-noble3393]

Just happy to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on here.

[@garyrobbins283]

"But where are the flying cars? I was promised flying cars!" Benjamin Sisko.

[@pricelessppp]

Great video! You should do ocean going ships in science fiction next!

[@brodriguez11000]

No Titanics in the future.

[@voltronimusprime3833]

​@@brodriguez11000The Doctor would beg to differ.

[@mattrobson3603]

I love the idea, and enjoy thinking about what the aesthetic and functional future of maritime vessels might hold. But I can't think of too many visual depictions of futuristic ships, unless you're also roping in submarines. For surface vessels there's that shot of a cargo ship from Looper at 6:09 in this vid, there's the Sea Dragon from Avatar (as well as the Matador and Picador auxiliary craft), and after that I got nothing. For subs there's Seaquest from the show of the same name, the Nautilus, and the sub from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. After that I can't think of any other future ships from movies or TV. (Though I know I have to be missing some from video games.)

[@FluidicNutUnion]

One thing that I like about cars in sci-fi setting is their power source. Like how in Fallout there's a damn nuclear reactor in it and it creates a mini mushroom cloud when it blows. Idk if that's realistic but it is very cool to see.

[@stevenscott2136]

Let's give them SOME credit -- they built a miniature reactor that can go without maintenance or refueling for 210 years and still have enough energy left to explode.

[@davidmccarthy6061]

I've been waiting over 30 years for airless tires and not expecting them to be in production in my lifetime.

[@Imaboss8ball]

Aren't they already in use? Or at least tires that can be run airless for a short while.

[@davect01]

I've definitely chilled on flying cars. They se em crazy dangerous unless completly automated.

[@philrm99]

Great compilation of vehicles in the video.

[@anticlaassic]

Honorable mention: cable cars from the revelation space universe. Basically a cabin with robot arms that grips cables hanging around a city. It’s controlled by computer so the ride is smooth as a train or car ride.

[@blueberry1vom1t]

. . . t-then why do they not just use trains?

[@anticlaassic]

@@blueberry1vom1t the city is made up of out of control self building skyscrapers. This means it’s very vertical and you can’t use a ground vehicle beyond the lowest levels. Imagine not overhead power lines, but instead a modern jungle made up of runaway technology. The cables sometimes grow to enclose stuck airships and they are so dense at times that flying becomes immeasurably risky. Even a Volantor (Alastair Reynolds version of a flying car) can not go everywhere a cable car can. It’s also cheaper. Now imagine a chase in cable cars through the thick hanging lines of Chasm City. You are basically flying through the wild skyscrapers, but you are shooting from car to cary, trying to make a car lose its grip and fall the several kilometers down to the lower levels! Fascinating concept

[@Realitycheckm8]

5:50 Side note, this is how you solve 50% of the problems on the West Coast.

[@wickerbotterthewizard707]

Honestly I find it much easier to treat flying cars like 'bladeless rotor crafts' since their aerial ability is roughly the same. With pilots for both being trained professionals that can taxi their passengers. The best reason I can think of to invest in hover cars is a driving environment that is already incredibly low traction like constant ice and snow.

[@lapiswolf2780]

I love this topic. I'm a car guy and I always get interested in seeing civilian vehicles in media.

[@sundoga4961]

Always liked the style of the cars in the old UFO series. Looked good, but different enough to differentiate the time setting of the show from when it was made.

[@najlitarvan921]

i know it does not fall under this category specifically, but i feel mentioning the fact that these kind of futuristic cars tend to have lot of almost random assortment of gadgets in them, like knight rider's KITT

[@c.ladimore1237]

the demolition man cars actually look good

[@hsngm33]

a video on futuristic walkable cities, cycling infrastructure, 15 minute cities, pedestrian friendly urban design in sci fi

[@scifirealism5943]

Epic

[@jakeaurod]

Like in KOTOR? I really liked that idea and wish we could do something similar in modern cities.

[@mattrobson3603]

Check out Dami Lee Architecture for examinations of SF buildings, along with real world designs.

[@dawfydd]

I think the Starwars style of roads flying cars follow is likely a good idea, something hardwired into the car so it must follow certain paths and not cause issues, but the Jedi can use some kind of universal key due to their DNA code or something high tech to enable it at a fingers touch. If we had everyone flying all over the place in any lane that'd be a nightmare, i almost thought maybe we'd need floating road markers but if programmed into cars it'd be enough.

[@Zack_Wester]

I just presume there is a switch in the car that flips it from lane driving to free flight (just that you do that in a place where your not supposed the traffic cops sees it on the police camera and sends someone over to ask why you did that. [over speakers 10 blocks from jedi temple] can the driver of the Green and blue Model 306 Motchi truck please rejoin the traffic lane.

[@Project2457official]

After a certain point why even have cars and constrain ourselves with that…as said in the video much of this could be accomplished far easier with a train.

[@darrengaroutte7744]

In my book Blood Hunt, it's set up that most cars hover via a maglev system. I used the concept of solar roadways to gather enough energy to power electromagnets in the roads that repulse the electromagnets in the cars. I also set where the roadways had sensors in them for the function of auto-driving rather than having them be on the vehicles themselves.

[@eh9618]

8:44 holy shit i never thought you'd put ultraman tiga in these videos.. the moment i saw the guts logo i had to take a double take

[@JustAnotheNeoSilver]

"Flying cars all going in specific patterns for no apparent reason." Hooji, my man, that's an actual thing with modern air travel. They're called airways, and they exist to keep track of who's where, prevent midair collisions, and keep civilian aircraft away from military airspace.

[@Salt_Master_Queue]

And, depending on the series and/or worldbuilding, vehicles, especially cars, can be a character all in of themselves.

[@robwalsh9843]

I always liked the Rylan space car from The Last Starfighter

[@dragonblaster-vu8wz]

I'm trying to remember where I've seen a hybrid of hover tech and wheels being used in sci-fi cards where the wheels rotate and become the hover jets. Visually, I wonder how that would work probably. But practically, it could offset some of the issues hover tech cars have. Being able to transition from wheeled to hovering would mean that no power is needed to keep the car in the air, and the wheels can get better grip for something like braking which just pushes a piece of metal against something for wheels vs needing to use more power to push the opposite direction the vehicle is traveling at that moment. And I just realized that the Bat Pod (the motorcycle that ejects from the Tumbler in The Dark Knight) solves the turning problem by making the whole wheel rotate. It certainly allows for crazy maneuvers since it's just 2 wheels instead of 4. Gotta wonder how power is put into the wheels so it can move at all though with that method of drifting with ease

[@voltronimusprime3833]

Back to the Future?

[@jakeaurod]

"Back to the Future" and sequels had hover-jets from rotating wheels.

[@Edge-wx7hv]

there's an 'legally distinct 70's ferrari' in burnout paradise with a hover mode, made to look kinda like the Delorean time machine. the hover mode is agile and maneuverable but not particularly fast, and you can't accelerate or decelerate fast, and in road mode it accelerates, and decelerates quickly (because tires) and can drive much faster. I found the best way to operate is to accelerate in ground mode, switch to hover for maneuvers, and back to ground for speed or braking. it keeps its momentum switching over, which is nice.

[@darrenrichardson6146]

@@voltronimusprime3833 Also Agents of Shield, specificly Coulson's baby, Lola

[@voltronimusprime3833]

@@darrenrichardson6146 Oh yeah.

[@kolinmartz]

1:00 most tactical vehicles have a central tire inflation system. Which means you can deflate them and leave very little air left and let that expand in the vacuum and you’re still left with usable tires since the tires in said tactical vehicles are run flats and are already rigid and only need air to keep its shape

[@wyrmh0le]

"The big downfall of these things is that they're really just worse trains, if you think about it" Can't believe @AdamSomething wasn't summoned by that line

[@thelordofcringe]

Wide tracks drastically lower ground pressure, wider tracks would be more common in tanks in real life if it wasnt for the limiting factor of all European and American railways being extremely width-limited due to tunnels and bridges

[@sleepib]

You can use pressurized tires in vacuum, it's just harder to inflate them there. The space shuttle for example. There are also good reasons to have roads for flying cars, especially in a city with extremely high population density, and traffic wanting to go up and down as well as N S E and W. A good example of this is the fifth element.

[@Belligerent_Herald]

I don’t hate fat treads on tanks, also makes sense for a vehicle that may need to operate in heavy grav environments. Tank gets heavier relative to mass then the treads need more surface area to distribute weight.

[@lordicarus8807]

I've seen once somewhere the idea of a variable-width wheel. I think it had something to do with air pressure and some other hijinks, but it was really cool. The tires would get slimmer in straight lines, therefore reducing drag and wider during turns, increasing stability. Also, something I see very little are walkers with wheels. Imagine a four-legged walker with a wheel at the tip of each limb. When in "road" mode it can keep its limbs close to the body and drive on the wheels, and if hard terrain requires, lock the wheels in place and use the legs.

[@jakeaurod]

No mention of "conveyances"? I saw the clip from "Demolition Man" in the video, but I liked how it was a quaint use of an existing term term, a retrologism (?) when so many others stories use futuristic neologisms.

[@reaganmonkey8]

7:15 I think even if we had flying cars, we would still need a traffic system, and you showed clips from Attack of the Clones, where the system is at least in layers, unlike Back to the Future II where traffic is the exact same as ours, on one plane, but in the air.

[@nightrunnerxm393]

7:05 Right...because _modern airplanes_ don't follow pre-determined, well-known, and regulated flight paths under the direction of Air Traffic Controllers all the time, they're just going wherever they want, so why should flying cars be any different? Okay, being less sarcastic now: I'm pretty sure all those flying cars have on board systems that direct them into those lanes of traffic for purposes of collision avoidance and traffic control the same way we've got standardized aviation routes and flight levels and navigation waypoints and TCAS such on modern aircraft. We've had to do all that since the increase in both aviation traffic and the speeds at which they fly have made VFR (Visual Flight Rules) both largely obsolete and incredibly dangerous to rely on outside of the smallest prop-driven aircraft that simply can't mount all of it...yet. Tech miniaturization will catch up to that eventually. So the question for me isn't so much "why would flying cars be so regulated in their flight paths" and more "why _wouldn't_ they be?" You can't exactly put road signs and lane markers in mid-air, so all those things would have to be displayed inside the vehicle. ...Assuming the show-runners and designers thought about that to begin with.

[@fluffly3606]

"They're really just worse trains" about sums up cars in real life too for most applications

[@Cwronaga216]

I've always liked the idea of vertical takeoff and Landing cars. Cars that can drive on the road with wheels just like any other vehicle but have the option to take off when fuel efficiency isn't an issue and you got to get somewhere quick without obstruction

[@nardgames]

While wide tires do provide better traction It's actually not because they increase friction. Friction is entirely independent of contact area. Sports cars use wide tires because wide tires can be made of a softer rubber The softer rubber increases friction. Off-road vehicles use wide tires to reduce ground pressure; and in order to better handle driving over loose material.

[@kevingriffith6011]

I feel like a lot of Sci-Fi future cars really don't consider how practical said future car is as an actual day-to-day driving vehicle. Technological development for commercial vehicles isn't going to make them faster, more maneuverable, or better in a high-octane chase scene... Developments are likely going to be aimed at making them cheaper, more energy efficient, safer to drive and more able to be automated. Everything beyond that is personal preference of the driver for their specific needs: Cargo space (But mostly car go on land), Aesthetic, Ease of storage, varying degrees of optional offroad potential.

[@tucadjmondracy3126]

To be fair to flying cars obeying to traffic lines: You know the chaos of regulating a flight zone around an airport? Now imagine that expanded to the average highway in the amount of people who have access to a plane

[@TetsuShima]

I really love the flying cars (airspeeders in this case) in Star Wars. It's cool as f*ck to have a car that literaly can fly like a plane. That said, these vehicles can be very damaging. For example, if you pilot an airspeeder in Taris in the KOTOR era, the most likely thing is that Zayne Carrick, chasing a gum thief, will crash into your hood and cause a huge traffic disaster with dozens of fatalities 😅

[@USSAnimeNCC-]

Two youtuber Adam something and Bladed angel made video of to why their bad idea

[@randlebrowne2048]

@@USSAnimeNCC-There are actually prototype flying cars *now* (have been for decades). They just don't get FAA approval due to the fact that they'd be too hard to track, and would fly too close to buildings and homes. Too much danger from crashes and terrorism.

[@josephglatz25]

7:00 Well, cars ARE really just worse trains in most ways anyway. They greatly increase traffic density, require a lot more metal and plastic per person carried, and make our city layouts less efficient.

[@Croz89]

If you want to go for efficient city layouts, just put everyone in one giant skyscraper, but that's usually seen as rather dystopian.

[@josephglatz25]

@@Croz89 Well, Skyscrapers aren't terribly space efficient either, believe it or not. Mid rise apartments and office buildings are actually best from that perspective. It's a little counter-intuitive, but it's true.

[@Croz89]

​@@josephglatz25 If you want to maximise people per square meter, building up is the only way to go. Might not be the most cost efficient, but you can't get any better with density.

[@dominicporter5100]

Just something I wanted to point out: The jeeps escorting the limo in The Creator are Mitsubishi Type 73s, jeeps made in the 1990s for the Japan Self Defense Force. I know most people won't recognise them (which is probably why they were picked), but 1990s army jeeps escorting a 2070s limo is like the modern Cadillac One limo being escorted by World War 2 Willys Jeeps and Hudson Hornets.

[@sundragon7703]

I am surprised there were no references to the "Mad Max" franchise, where repurposed vehicles achieved character status because of their additional functionalities beyond transportation. Also, I've been around long enough to remember the vehicles from Anderson (Gerry & Sylvia) & ITC's (UK) titles like Thunderbirds and UFO.

[@SM-zz4gx]

You don't actually need airless tires in space. The air pressure difference between space and Earth at sea level is 14.7 PSI. Which means if you have a tire aired up to 40 PSI, on Earth by the time you shoot it into space it will effectively be at 54.7 PSI which really isn't a huge difference, certainly not one that will cause catastrophic failure. The biggest reason for using airless tires in space nobody wants to be changing a in a spacesuit

[@plantspie2.060]

On the subject of futuristic vehicles, I think it would be interesting to cover futuristic motor sports like the 2008 Speed Racer.

[@lachlanmckinnie1406]

Matthew Reilly's Hover Car Racer (book) is quite good, has nice worldbuilding with permanent(ish) hovercars.

[@jakeaurod]

Or any futuristic sport, like the arena football in the "Starship Troopers" film, droid soccer in Star Wars, Ender's Game, or Brockian Ultra Cricket from Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe series of books.

[@ImperatorZor]

Adam Something has a good video on flying cars.

[@kai_plays_khomus]

Well, flying cars following lines for no apparent reason other than avoiding collisions actually makes sense, after all that's precisely how air traffic is organized already, with dedicated lanes depending on destination. In a way aircrafts indeed are limited to roads in the air - and we are very lucky that's the case, otherwise we'd be under constant threat of getting hit by an engine, a tire or human torso literally out of the blue permanently because shit would fall out the sky constantly all around us.. 😅

[@yodaslovetoy]

Back to the future promised us flying cars by now. *WHERE'S MY FLYING CAR, MCFLY!!*

[@jakeaurod]

They exist, but no one wants to fly them. Many use a multi-rotor design like quad-copter drones. The problem is they do not glide or auto-rotate worth a damn, so their failure mode is to fall like a rock.

[@mattrobson3603]

@@jakeaurod Pretty true to fiction, given that the design of most flying cars in scifi would drop out of the air like a shot goose if they had a motor failure.

[@earlware4322]

I know, so many of the Sci-Fi movies/shows I grew up on showed flying cars all over the dang place. I figured by the time I was this old I'd have one of my own by now. 🤬🤬 WHERE'S MY STINKING SPINNER!!!

[@blackdragon5274]

Imo, the SUX from RoboCop isn't tacky, and actually looks rad

[@nicholsonastrid]

"however, the big downfall of these things is that they're really just worse trains" this could be said of all cars

[@2MeterLP]

That makes no sense. A car can go almost anywhere, whenever you want. He said that about those hovercars because they only work on pre-built tracks.

[@nicholsonastrid]

@@2MeterLP in places where trains are actually invested in, they're often a much better option than cars, which take up a ridiculous amount of space and cost billions in infrastructure repairs every year. I understand this mindset though because in North America, cars are intentionally designed to be the only option and everything else is made shitty on purpose

[@2MeterLP]

@@nicholsonastrid I am german. Both cars and trains have their advantages and use cases.

[@nicholsonastrid]

@@2MeterLP I agree, cars are fine in principle but if a city or country becomes too dependent on them, it becomes a big problem

[@Croz89]

​​​@@nicholsonastrid Unless you're going for a fun but impractical railpunk aesthetic, or all your cities are super duper dense with a few dozen giant skycrapers, you're going to need something more flexible than a train that can go further than on foot or bicycle. Even places like Tokyo and Seoul still have plenty of cars and traffic in today's world, so in the future we can probably assume there will be a need for something similar.

[@alexanderanderson9929]

If you want an example of a simple rotatable wheel, FRC's Swerve Drive is a good example. They can even be externaly powered rather that with an internal motor.

[@THERUBBISHPCKID]

Gotta say it is really nice to see you mention cyberpunk so much, was sad to see not a single mention of the basilisk in your tank video

[@CaptainBill22]

Commercial airlines fly on designated routes set by governments and the airlines, especially when making their approach to airports. Pilots also have to submit flight plans with the route they plan to take before each flight . It would be less realistic for flying cars to not to fly in designated lanes.

[@matteste]

This actually made me think of the cars from Turn A Gundam. Specifically cause it reverses the usual trend with the cars being old and comparably primitive things for such a far future setting. Of course there is a reason for that, but thats a spoiler. Another one that I can think of are the various insane cars from Redline.

[@wogelson]

Bro I literally just finished this movie an hour ago, what a timing

[@Arashmickey]

For the bleeding edge in futuristic car design, look no further than Homer Simpson!

[@SeedemFeedemRobots]

the asymmetric designs of Cyberpunk2077 to me suggests that car safety laws have since been thrown out the window, since many modern automobiles designs are not only influenced by fashion and taste, also vehicle design regulation, that is what has produced hidden and popup headlight designs during the 60s-80s, because american regulations requiring sealed beam headlights. now without those laws or being made toothless, those manufactures can make clearly unsafe designs just for cost cutting or sheer quirkiness for market appeal. it also reminds me think of those life size clay models used by automaker design teams that make the model asymmetric to test aerodynamics and study style, like the manufacturer just sees the unfinished "sketch" clay model and pushes it into production lol

[@MitchCyan]

“Strange rubber feet, like a wolf!”

[@patrickschulz2193]

Did not expect an Ultraman Tiga clip, nice.

[@johnwiebe8581]

Gasp, Not one reference to the Starcar from Last Starfighter! I guess it is so cool it can't get on this list.

[@darksidegryphon5393]

Do you know what science fiction needs more of? Bikes.

[@jbdelphiaiii7637]

it would be interesting to see a SF story with 'tumblebugs' ('The Roads Must Roll') -- or our current EUCs -- as a primary transport. I think Syd Mead made an illustration with EUCs being used in an O'Neil colony.

[@Zack_Wester]

on setting whit hovercars that runs on "track/roads" is that I presume that it runs on the infrastructure when on it and then you use the internal hover engine (if the car have it) when needed or when your not on the track/road (road whit hover tech support). also I hope shows whit ground hover cars have some kind of landing gear just that we dont see them deployed or they are on (what I will just call magnet parking lots and thoes just hover whit no power).

[@hsngm33]

maybe a video on sci fi trains next ?

[@USSAnimeNCC-]

Flying train

[@sci-fyguy7767]

There’s one of those in Dead Space 2.

[@Sentryunit582]

There’s avatar 2’s supply transport

[@IAmTheAce5]

It’s good to hear that automotive fashion sense is still just as nebulous to me as ever.

[@theaureliasys6362]

Any fiction that doesn't have electrified trains, steel wheels on steel rails, running reliably and sufficiently often is a deal breaker for me.

[@stevenscott2136]

Try Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth stories -- they use trains for interstellar travel by running them through Stargates. "Pandora's Star" is a good place to start.

[@Zamun]

Thanks for the content.

[@bikecommuter24]

I always liked the cars and moon mobiles used in the UFO tv series.

[@dakaodo]

"They're just worse trains" -- Hoojiwana summoning Adam Something. XD

[@Otterdisappointment]

Cars are funny because they’ve been depicted in a broadly sober manner. More often than not people are driving vehicles that are just like modern gas cars but maybe on another planet or something or they may have a theoretical rover model running on something more exotic for military purposes. The cars the public uses are more literally grounded because even in Star Wars where most vehicles don’t just hover with undercarriage jets but fly at high altitudes, there are more people you don’t see that can’t get, use or afford that kind of vehicle or any vehicle for that matter because even in space people are poor and possibly stuck in space New York. If they can afford what we would consider a *nice* car it’s because they live on the ground in an open Human settlement using a slightly more advanced or just built different version of what we’re driving today; if even *we* could afford the nice brand new cars which is exactly why flying cars, while we do technically already possess them here on Earth, just won’t be a thing for us for all of those reasons and more (FAA and 9/11 ring any bells?).

[@6-4crusader55]

My favorite futuristic car is a train

[@Macintoshiba]

top notch music choice for this video. I know the Red Faction Guerilla soundtrack when I hear it!

[@ramironunezborjas967]

4:22 year by year we're getting closer to the T180s from speed racer

[@Madash023]

you make fun of flying cars for following arbitrary lines in the air, but that's literally how planes work today with airways

[@johnsteiner3417]

Smart materials. That's the future of treads, and they may not even be a wheel. A wad of stuff that hardens and softens selectively around a pair of axial bars.

[@willabyuberton818]

Just one more air lane, bro, come on, one more air lane and we'll fix air traffic bro

[@comentedonakeyboard]

I guess a futuristic Lada would look the same as a present day Lada or an old Lada