Until recently, the world has been limited to conventional taxi cabs, buses, trains, and passenger jets to get around. Now services like Lyft and Uber are taking off. This is convenient, but overseas travel is still difficult. If you want to travel overseas, you will have to spend an eternity waiting in airports and undergo security checks before you can finally leave. Public transportation has become more complicated due to terror threats. Airport security is high because a single plane carries hundreds of people.
There is no obvious solution on the market, and private jets are ridiculously expensive. Flying cars aren’t happening for now. Despite the fact that flying cars and private jets are impractical, this doesn’t mean that people cannot fly privately. Let us look at what makes private jets impractical:
- Their fuel consumption is too high: This is because private jets are awfully large for one person.
- Planes require runways. This means that you can’t simply land and take off anywhere you please. You are limited to airports.
- Their prices are too high.
- They are piloted by people.
Private jets are built for extremely wealthy people, not to be economical. Let’s move onto flying cars. Flying cars attempt to transition between land travel and flight, which is a very difficult feat. For vehicles which take off and land like planes: This simply cannot work for the masses, as you cannot use a street or highway with other cars on it as a runway. Another problem with flying cars is that they must have both aviation and street driving equipment built in, instead of only aviation equipment which a drone would. This unnecessarily increases the cost of flying cars. If you can fly, do you really need to drive on pavement? I don’t think so. I have seen numerous attempts to build flying cars, and they are all limited by the same problems mentioned above.
Drone technology has improved substantially, and is now capable of flying unmanned, and even delivering goods. The last two steps to commercializing delivery drones is to get government approval and roll out the first set of test drones. I think this concept can be scaled up a bit to pick up/drop off people with extremely light, small drones without the creature comforts, bells and whistles, and other things private jets contain. Just an unmanned barebones vehicle. This may have the potential to be affordable and convenient.
Imagine being able to call a vehicle to carry you to another country without having to take off your shoes! You also won’t have to hear other peoples’ loud children, worry about which seat you’re getting (you can always have the window seat), or even hire a taxi. You could fly straight to the site of an event in another country. You may even be able to avoid hotel fees (if it is a one-day trip). I can’t attest the practicality of drone cabs, but I thought I would pitch this idea in case anyone wants to try it.
Good luck if you do!
