So, at face value, maybe not so useful. But one thing I was thinking about, was especially with the self-driving mode, imagine it being able to use that capability to avoid an accident? Especially if there was no time to slow down. Could be useful there.
But of course for the most part all I see on Reddit is Musk=Bad, so no real discourse over it.
Edit: Seems people are getting really hung up on my shower thought of accident avoidance. It was a single idea, don’t get caught up in the semantics. This could have more use cases we don’t see, because this kind of thing has never been possible.
Like with the first flight of the airplane. Nobody needed to slowly coast a few hundred feet somewhere, but today, planes are pretty useful. Same goes for cars, when they first came out, they couldn’t hold a candle to a horse, and now? Horses as a means of transportation are quite rare when compared to cars (yes, they’re still used, but not as common as cars)
All the commentary are looking at this wrong. Its a tech demo. The tech are thrusters that can move an object around in 3 dimensions precisely. This can be shrunk down, put on an exo-skeleton and boom you have Ironman suits. This could be made even smaller and you have micro drones for moving around in space. The uses for this, eventually, will be plentiful.
I didn't realized it also could do time travel. It's four directions of freedom. Also precise thrust vectoring is all ready well established drone tech. This is not something new. Shrinking it into a wearable suit runs into energy density and heat limits, not just a size problem. Which is another reason why this is just a stunt and nothing actually practical.
Yes your right, this technology isn't new in itself but new in its implementation.
Jetpacks are becoming safer and eventually most cars may be implemented with the system if it does become viable.
Here's a tip for the science/ technology space: not everything that is revealed or released becomes common or is successful in itself but the fact they are released gives it the possibility to become so and allows more inventions closely related to be made and improve like how the release of the black berry phone allowed apple to become what it is today.
If you attached those thrusters to a human and tried to make them fly like iron man you’d rip their limbs off the second you fire the thrusters. Believe it or not the iron man character is not based on real science
I honestly have a hard time believing this is real at all. My point was just cause they are taking money doesn’t mean it’s going to be available in the near future. Also pretty sure this is exactly what a concept car is “A concept car is a prototype vehicle built by an automotive manufacturer to showcase new styling, futuristic design ideas, and cutting-edge technology rather than for immediate mass production”.
Even if they’re taking deposits. What you’re seeing is not a production version, it’s a concept version. It’s not in a production phase, but a development, which makes what we saw a concept of what they may want to bring to market. What may actually come to market, will likely be different
I made my post before reading yours and you’re spot on. The initial concept of a novel invention is usually not all that functional, but the idea compounds with other technologies until it becomes a very useful invention. Your airplane analogy is spot on.
And yes, I think people are only looking at what this is, in this very moment, and not seeing it for what it could be, the future potential, all the tech and advancement that could come from stuff like this. Maybe nothing comes from it, maybe a lot does.
Mfer gonna blow up like a ford fiesta when it gets rear ended LMAO
Seriously though after the fiestas, they introduced regulation to have an emergency gas valve shutoff in the event of collision. What safety features does that high pressure thruster tank have?
Also, it's a under constant high pressure like a fire extinguisher or SCBA tank (also wrapped in composite material.) They need inspection of the internal shell for rust, abrasions, deep knicks/cracks. Because that greatly reduces structural integrity of the shell under constant high pressure or they go boom. Will this high pressure tank need those annual inspections?
Like seriously this thing is so impractical... It'll just be a collectors item sitting in people like Jay Leno's garage.
How does this avoid an accident really in any way that doesnt lead to more accidents. Like yeah sure on a motorway with multiple lanes but doing this in a street the car is ending up doing more damage
Exactly this, if Im in a situation somebody is going to hit me or I another person most of the situations involve lack of space because of traffic or in the city. Frankly how does the thing KNOW where to land? If Im on a cliffside will the thing dodge to the cliff? If a dude is about to rear end me cause he ran a red but its bumper to bumper traffic around me? Will the car try to dodge every situation of a car hitting me or will this expensive ass Tesla feature only work on AI perceived death level collisions?
Im not even trying to be a contrarian, Im just simply having questions for being sold another expensive ass electrical feature to fix essentially nothing about my 99% drive
Will it have cameras underneath and the additional programming to handle landing aswell as the normal semi autonomous driving? Like tesla automatically disengages autopilot a few seconds before a crash will thos do the same whos liable when it goes wrong
We're allowed to review our opinion of something after more information is released. A 10yr old vaporware car, under a famously vaporware type salesman, who just recently packaged his vaporware ai company to inflate the value of the only solid space company he had. And hes planning to merge his vaporware car company with the vaporwareridden space company. We're allowed to be skeptical until if ever he delivers
Also, it would probably play better if this wasn't coming from a company known for its cars locking drivers inside while they burn to death or purposefully aiming for kids while self driving. The ability to fly was not really the progress we were looking for....
Also would be good for the rare occasion you might accidentally drive off a cliff. It could rotate you and slowly bring you down to the bottom vs a death plummet
This; these people can't get over their hatred over the dude to see the possible advantages of this system has if it becomes common place: saving people who are in a free fall if an accident happens on a bridge, quickly stopping (albeit there'll be some injuries probably) for an accident.
If the fans can work well on ice and snow without getting clogged than itll be amazing for winter driving.
But nope redditors gotta hate on a car with a practical gimmick that can potentially save lives just because the creator is rich and won't give them money that they feel entitled to
You are not theoretically wrong
But let's just see how it goes.
In such case, the car would have to fly (more like jump) over the obstacle. Now either
1. it goes down fast, definately harming the driver like falling from the sky.
2. Or it sustains its elevated position long enough to land smoothly. (Or stay in the air) Meaning any living thing under it would be torched by those thrusters. Plus damage to the obstacle. (Someone pointed it out that the car used for demonstration behaves too light and possibly lacks a lot of gear. Real weight needs a lot of thrusting)
Either way, those engines are more safery hazards than feul consumption problems
In order for it to be safe you would have to ensure both the launch zone and landing zone are clear of obstacles. My assumption is this would only provide a brief hop and not a very sustained flight. Seems impractical for any real life situation. Its just a really cool engineering feat and a party trick imo. People will pay though just to say look what i can do.
What happens to these tanks under extremely high pressure in a normal catastrophic car crash? Do they explode and spew ultra fast shrapnel at bystanders?
Its not theoreticall impossible but these sort of tanks are generally designed to fail in a very specific way. They vent at predesigned weak spots which allows them to safely decompress. My source is i have qualified pressure vessel to PED category III as an engineer. Hyrdostatic testing verifies the vessels fail consistenly and without shrapnel. No pressure vessel is 100% safe.
The good(?) news is that if someone was willing to spend half a million dollars to commit an atrocity, any car is going to be extremely low on the list of possible tools. Car/truck attacks are usually done because they're cheap yet effective, that's why you don't really see terror cells using Lamborghinis or Rimacs in them.
I guess that’s true - I was just thinking those traditional sports cars are loud as hell. The electric one is silent until that tank starts dispensing by the time you even hear it you would be dead
True but im pretty sure the condensation is because the air is being blown out faster than sound (which you can see happen when a jet breaks the barrier) so its still gonna be dangerous being get hit by it but still a cool feature nonetheless
And if it fails to avoid the accident, the odds that one of those tanks gets punctured is high considering the space they take up. That would just turn the whole vehicle into a bomb.
You’re talking about something catching on fire vs what would be more akin to a bomb going off.
A doubt a car bursting into flames is going to turn pieces of the car into flying shrapnel the same way a pressurized tank rapidly degassing would. If the gas tank is punctured, you still need a flame or spark. A fender bender can cause a pressurized tank to rupture and instantly release all that stored up energy.
I suppose it depends on how those thrusters work, even compressed air on someone with those velocities wouldn’t be pleasant, but shouldn’t burn anyone. Definitely would be interesting to see how this gets developed and implemented.
Appreciate you willing to have an actual discourse about this as well :)
Maybe? Was just a thought, was trying to start a conversation. Looking for a possible use scenario. Options are always good during an emergency, we’ve just never had “up and over” as an option.
I think by avoiding one scenario youre adding way more potential for harm. I'd have serious questions about what kind of sensors you'd need to be able to see clearly what's behind an obstacle in front of you to justify having to launch 10 feet in the air to "safely avoid" it. If your sensors couldnt proactively keep you safe from one obstacle I wouldnt put trust in it to keep me safe from what may he hidden behind it. Im just imagining a deer crossing the road and its unavoidable so now youre roadster launches you 12 feet in the air except wait..... now you cant turn because youre wheels aren't touching thr ground and you flying into the 2nd story of a house going 30mph, or into a ravine.
For sure, I mean there could be uses I’m not seeing, and what I proposed couldn’t definitely not be on the list. Was just an idea. Though, I will say about it not being able to turn, in the demo, it did sort of turn (did flips/rolls), so I won’t say it would be impossible to make actual turns. We just didn’t see it in the video.
Rotating is one thing but trying to actively move this thing left or right is another thing. And I'm sure this stunt was calculated ahead of time. This wasnt the onboard computer deciding in .1 seconds to go fast and furious on this track.
And about turning or other movement who knows in the end? Honestly, I’m just curious to see where this goes. I can’t decide off a quick demo whether it’ll be useful (or more likely useless for the most part), but I can still find wonderment in it, and see potential. For all we know it’ll only ever be a gimmick. And if so, it still made for a cool video.
I struggle to find even one scenario where it would be better to do this over breaking unless the bridge you are on collapses.
You need enough time, fuel and momemtum to achieve lift and unless you remove the backseats for a fuel tank i dont see how it is possible. What does a Tesla weigh? Probably 1.2-1.7 tonnes.
Not to mention how in many cases you will come crashing at eye level instead of along the ground, making it more dangerous.
Not trying to compare this to the first plane, but as an example, that had no real use when it was first created. Nobody needed a plane to go a few hundred feet or whatever it flew. But after some tech advances etc, planes are pretty useful now.
Same was said about cars. Horses made more sense when the first car came out. Now look.
So sure, this means of propulsion has little value we can see right now. Does it mean it’ll always be like that? Could it be useful in the future? Maybe.
They designed a working jetpack over 50 yrs ago, but it wasnt practical because a person can only carry about 60 secs worth of fuel. That hasnt changed in all the decades and the same is true for cold gas thrusters. This is a stunt. Build one for Travis Pastrana and let him tour the world with his Nitro Circus, flipping his flying Tesla for the kids, but that's as far as it will ever go.
People still dream of having an actual working jet pack. Like that dude who essentially made one of those vehicles from Star Wars. It only works for like 10 mins, but it’s still awesome.
And I’d be happy to see gymkhana (sp) 56 or whatever using a car with thrusters doing something wild, even if it’s the only thing it’s ever used for…
That’s what makes imagination cool! You can think about stuff, without ever needing to do it.
Oh, also, isn’t that what it did? Didn’t it fly over stuff in the video? Even if in an incredibly controlled area? And potentially never be able to do this in the real world? It still did it. And my inner child loved watching it. I can not particularly like Musk, and still think it’s cool.
A car is typically packed to the brim with stuff it actually needs on a daily basis. If you are packing it with a one time use and feature like this, it will add to daily weight and space that is useless for 99% of the situations. So practically it's not realistic feature just from an economics perspective.
You’ve just described so many “super cars”. Incredibly impractical, and not realistic in terms of use or an economics perspective, and yet, there’s still a market for them, because some people have an obscene amount of FU money.
And just like I can enjoy a video of a couple of super cars ripping around a closed track, if this ever comes out, I can enjoy videos of it doing whatever it does, even if impractical.
No arguments here. And that goes for a lot of things, social media for instance, or the uber rich (anything over a billion should be confiscated and used for the general betterment of people)
This is the problem of today. We pursue things for their aesthetic purposes without thinking about the real world consequences. Flying cars will only be afforded to those that can afford it and the power to use. You will never experience one of these. Everyone’s going to have to be a trained pilot otherwise. Everyone will have to pass FAA standards to use this transportation. Or you’re above the law and it doesn’t matter. It’s just another gimmick.
More likely? Maybe. Who knows, was just one possibility out of many on what use this could have. It could just only ever be a gimmick.
But I’m not going to immediately dismiss it because it’s from Musks company. Even if I’m not a big fan of his. My inner nerd/child can still think it’s bad ass to see a car moving through the air using thrusters.
The only way this would be useful is if you drive off a bridge or something. But surely the goal would be to not drive off a bridge, especially with autonomous vehicles.
Yikes at the room temperature IQ take. The car is filled with compressed gas tanks. This will never actually be put on the road and even if it was it would be totally impractical and a massive hazard.
But of course for the most part all I see on Reddit is Musk=Bad, so no real discourse over it.
and rightfully so. The guy did the nazi salute at the presidential inauguration, gutted a bunch of government agencies that were investigating him, set himself up to receive government money, and is now spending something like 400 million to pay for republican campaigns in an effort destroy american democracy.
He's also interfering with Ukraine in favor of Russia
You're right, people are reposting this all over because default musk=bad. If anyone else invented this ppl would be ecstatic that this finally happened...
And that’s exactly it. If someone else had come up/released this, I bet lots of the negative Nancie’s in here would be happy about something like this, even if it turns out to be just a novel gimmick.
People posting it might like it, but a majority of comments are negative on it.
Yeah totally, instead of crashing, you just crush the other car with thousands of pound sod pressure, then land in a different spot in same situation if you don’t end up on top of another car
The public will never have this tech. We already would. Theres no technological problem preventing flying cars and hasn't been for a good long time now. Its just a bad idea for everyone involved. Theres never a time where you want this.
So, at face value, maybe not so useful. But one thing I was thinking about, was especially with the self-driving mode, imagine it being able to use that capability to avoid an accident? Especially if there was no time to slow down. Could be useful there.
The reality is this is a publicity stunt. Nothing more. Cool trick but utterly useless.
Like yes you could theoretically avoid an accident with some kind of thruster system, but I think any advantage would quickly be mitigated by having a container with ungodly pressure in your car that is essentially a bomb.
Agreed. I don’t particularly like Musk. But I can still see awe in this, and how cool it is, even if nothing comes from this. Still pretty cool, and appeals to my inner child who still likes to imagine.
There's certainly plenty of arguments to be made for and against the usefulness of the rocket propulsion, but, there is undoubtedly a lot of criticism being made here simply due to Musk being tied with the product. Im sure what will likely happen, like many super cool advancements that aren't practical for the common man, is this will lead to other innovations that will provide further entertainment and/or usefulness due to this simply existing now.
Agreed. I think this biggest issue people have with this tech, is that it came from one of Musks companies. I’m not even a big fan of his, but I think this tech, or what might come from it could be pretty cool.
Its impossible to say this tech is useless when its just come out. It may lead to a rocket propulsion engineer looking at their propulsion tech differently and applying those ideas in a new way which could lead to other changes that drastically improve things down the road, or any number of other avenues of engineering. Its impossible to say. People probably thought NASA was useless at first, like what use is a whole department of the government and public tax dollars being used for space travel useful for in regards to the actual public, but that led to countless inventions that were incredibly useful for the general public, such as MRI.
It will literally never be road legal. Yes even "just the rear thruster" version. It would be an insurance and safey nightmare for everyone around it on the road
No? As long as you’re not using them on the street, it’s not illegal to have thrusters on your car. Many cars have track modes that make them not road compliant, but that’s doesn’t mean you can’t buy them and drive them on the road. The bigger issue is crash testing. The Thrust version has a tank in the trunk so that shouldn’t be a problem for crash testing, but the Rocket version has another in the passenger seat which would be a nightmare to get through crash testing.
Who knows, maybe they’ll have a few of these pointed forward as brake assists? And I think these are compressed air, not “rocket boosters”? I could be wrong though.
So, at face value, maybe not so useful. But one thing I was thinking about, was especially with the self-driving mode, imagine it being able to use that capability to avoid an accident? Especially if there was no time to slow down. Could be useful there.
I mean truly the stupidest imaginable way to avoid an accident. Sending a 2-ton metal piece of scrap into the air on rocket thrusters? What happens when it, I dunno, just fucking explodes, like many of the rockets they send up into atmo? Or lands on some fucking kid on the sidewalk?
Tell me you don’t know anything about traffic accidents without telling me …
It can not be useful in any conceivable way. Let’s break it down a bit:
First of all, there are hardly any circumstances where „lifting off“ would even be feasible even with these boosters, let alone avoid an actual accident. Especially one that couldn’t be avoided by good autopilots.
Secondly, the added weight and dangerous high pressure gas is likely to cause and aggravate accidents. This shit is such a safety hazard and it would be put in a vehicle so overpowered to be used for normal traffic is simply ridiculous and dangerous.
Thirdly the thing will probably hardly work under realistic circumstances and in actual road scenarios. It’s a gimmick, at best.
Now to your argument about Planes and Horses… this is just a bad comparison.
Planes weren’t really useful at first but human flight had been a dream for centuries and there was an established use for flight already with balloons (for example in mapping and recon). The only thing dubious was whether motorised flight with heavier than air planes would be feasible.
Once the concept was demonstrated (first by gliders and Lilienthal and second and foremost be the Wright brothers) things kicked off.
Horses versus cars were a wholly different matter. It took a while for the car to be more than a cool gimmick. Early cars were mostly toys for the rich. But they worked. They had a purpose. Even if horse drawn carriages could do some things better for a while a car was a viable transport device after Benz.
This shitty thing has no sensible use beyond stunt driving. Not now. Not ever.
I love how you still decided to get so focused initially on my shower thought, which I already addressed in my “edit”, so I won’t even bother responding to that part.
People wanted to fly for a long time yes. Just like people have wanted flying cars for a long time, it’s literally been a sci-fi thing for forever.
Planes weren’t useful, but became useful, cars weren’t useful but became useful.
A flying car with thrusters isn’t useful now, but could it become useful? Maybe. Or the tech surrounding it could be useful someday. Formula 1 cars are basically useless too, but they’ve been a testbed for a lot of tech we use in our regular cars. This could be similar.
I just find people dismissing it wholeheartedly, and quite likely due to its origin is very shortsighted.
This is not a flying car. It is a car that can use a stupendous amount of gas for a short burst. If it even will be able to leave the ground when standing is questionable and it won’t be able to do anything you consider „flying“. Not now. Not in 30 years.
You can think whatever you like but every comparison you draw makes it more clear you have no clear idea how this works.
F1 isn’t used to push development. It is marketing by showing your prowess at excellence within defined limitations.
THIS in its current form may yes be a terrible idea. I’m curious to see what they can do with it, or other tech this could inspire that may be useful for us beyond a stunt.
Again, I think people are being shortsighted here.
Yeah dude let me do a kickflip with a 3 ton object in the middle of a highway or city traffic. I’m sure that me doing a sick bunny hop over an accident won’t cause me to behead anybody walking near it or crush a car on landing.
There is no reality where avoiding a crash contains actions that make further crashes significantly more likely and astronomically more deadly. This can never be useful as crash avoidance.
Just stop a think. A sudden jerk in the direction someone is not previously moving is not only dangerous for other people, but incredible G forces for a person in the car too.
Also this will literally NEVER be street legal in any capacity. That much pressurized air is such a massive liability and would cause the car to blow up like a wacky waving inflatable tube man that got hit by 1000 tacks
Another person getting hung up on my shower thought ffs.
The tech this could lead to, could be incredible, but sure, get hung up on a car doing a kickflip, and see that as the only possible potential for this.
No imagination, and can’t see the forest for the trees
Mate there’s no level of imagination that will lead to pressurized air canisters delivering non human controlled drastic directional shifts becoming MORE safe than current safety measures, or even getting remotely close to it.
I had the shower thought yesterday that maybe God pisses water and his cock is just so massive that’s how rain works. But if I shared that and people called me a fucking moron I wouldn’t think they’re lacking in imagination. My idea was just fucking stupid. Like yours.
So, you don’t see potential for pressurized air, using vectoring to move a body through space/air?
My accident avoidance idea may have been dumb, sure, again, people getting hung up on that, that’s also dumb.
I’m trying to see what else this could be used for. And not necessarily attached to a car. But who knows what else?
Cars seemed dumb to people with horses too, and now look at the world. Same could be said for planes. Not everyone was “on board” with those technologies, and they were proven wrong, because….they lacked imagination and vision.
I can’t see or imagine everything this could be adapted to, but I’m excited to find out, instead of immediately dismissing it.
Maybe it’ll be useful, or maybe it’ll end up as just a gimmick at a stunt show, if that. But it’d still be a freaking cool gimmick.
Yeah I and everybody else saw the potential for pressurized air using vectoring to move a body through space/air. They’re called jet packs. We figured them out decades ago and realized that they’re horribly inefficient and beyond that, just wildly, mindnumbingly dangerous
People fought against cars because they were ridiculously expensive compared to horses and they were ridiculously unreliable compared to horses. This all went away the second the assembly line became a thing and cars got cheaper than horses.
The problem with your thought is there’s no hypothetical where pressurized air is more efficient or safer than the current methods we use. And even the hypothetical best case use of pressurized air, limited by basic laws of air density, is not better than the current methods we have for circumnavigation
Again, apply what you just said, in terms of advancement etc from cars, to thrust vectoring, and it could also be a thing in the future.
I never said it would, I keep saying it could. You keep saying it won’t. But we can’t know that for sure, so I’m happy to wait and see, while you sit confident in your absolutes, I’m confident to say that I don’t know, but that at least I’m interested to see what may come from it.
The advancement of cars was that we were able to build them cheaper. That’s it.
The advancement of pressurized air canisters would need to FUNDAMENTALLY CHANGE our definitions of density and pressure for it to be viable as a competitor to any current method in use without any upgrades or improvements.
We would need to change physics for this to be viable. We did not need to change physics to build an assembly line.
There’s already a car the McMurtry Spéirling, that uses a giant fan to suck it to the ground (and can go upside down), and it doesn’t fling anything at anyone.
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u/ExiledCanuck 11h ago edited 9h ago
So, at face value, maybe not so useful. But one thing I was thinking about, was especially with the self-driving mode, imagine it being able to use that capability to avoid an accident? Especially if there was no time to slow down. Could be useful there.
But of course for the most part all I see on Reddit is Musk=Bad, so no real discourse over it.
Edit: Seems people are getting really hung up on my shower thought of accident avoidance. It was a single idea, don’t get caught up in the semantics. This could have more use cases we don’t see, because this kind of thing has never been possible.
Like with the first flight of the airplane. Nobody needed to slowly coast a few hundred feet somewhere, but today, planes are pretty useful. Same goes for cars, when they first came out, they couldn’t hold a candle to a horse, and now? Horses as a means of transportation are quite rare when compared to cars (yes, they’re still used, but not as common as cars)