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Video of the Week: ALEF Flying Car

Writer's picture: Mal McCallionMal McCallion

OK. If you're not excited by the idea of flying cars, this may not be the blog for you.


Because LOOK!!!!! FLYING CARS ARE HERE!!!!!!!!!


Not necessarily +here+ here, but there's a video now and there wasn't before!


Behold, as it very very slowly takes off vertically from a sheet in the desert! Then wobbles unconvincingly over another car parked the short-way round - and then delicately lands on a sheet on the other side of it (but quite some way away just in case).


Marvel, as it scoops up the entire dust in the neighbourhood and - once again - navigates the tricky 'overtaking a stationary car' manoeuvre, but vertically!


There are even more use-cases on display too - a truck has jack-knifed on a busy highway and the ALEF flies over it without anyone even observing it. This is either so far in the future that it's a commonplace as a bird flying overhead or - just perhaps - it's been superimposed on the scene. Similarly, a lone ALEF swoops through some mountains and forests and stuff and then over towards a cityscape.


All of this must have happened.


Cynicism aside, this is how progress is made. Someone makes some cool looking videos. Then some technical people have to make something that can be a realistic Minimum Viable Product (MVP). It would seem that this operates like a drone, with rotor blades under the chassis to propel it in the air. There will be a heap of other challenges - presumably it's going to be electric and EV batteries are incredibly heavy. Humans aren't light either. For a while we're going to have the equivalent of the flag-wavers walking in front of cars to warn people that a motorised carriage is coming, thus meaning that the speed is limited to walking pace and the impact is zero.


But then we'll get our Formula 1 versions ...


And in the meantime - LOOK!! FLYING CARS ARE HERE!!!!

 
 
 

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