High above Los Angeles, flying cars cruise through skies darkened by pollution, transporting passengers between landing zones located atop maximum-security skyscrapers. That?s the dystopian opening scene in Blade Runner, a 1982 science-fiction classic, and it turns out the film?s creators were on to something.
Thirty-five years later, at a time when flying-taxi prototypes are officially airborne in Dubai, when Silicon Valley venture capitalists are zealously pursuing autonomous tech, and when seasoned automakers are purchasing aero startups, a pair of business analysts have issued a forecast for the future of flying cars that runs counter to the prevailing enthusiasm surrounding this fledgling technology.
In a paper entitled ?Flying Autonomous Vehicles: The Next Big Thing That Isn?t,? Kimberly Harris-Ferrante and Michael Ramsey, analysts for global technology consulting firm Gartner, rebuff the notion that these machines are just around the corner. They write that engineering and regulatory hindrances will likely prevent flying cars from ever making an appreciable contribution to next-generation transportation networks. And that might be a good thing. If these contraptions ever did achieve widespread use, the authors postulate, the future could look a lot like Blade Runner, with society?s elite blissfully zipping above crime-ridden and pollution-choked hellholes in flying autonomous vehicles. ?I love the idea of them,? Ramsey told Car and Driver. ?Of course we all love ...