Sunday, March 10, 2019

To be clear: I am pro-future

Look, I'm not against the future. In fact, I think I'm pretty pro-future. But I'm going to go ahead and say that these will never be a thing people drive. What thing? See? I tricked you that time. Here's the link, but since you're not really going to click on it, I'll just press on.
Behold the future of...uh...bathroom hand dryers?
The creepy, subtly Aryan, future as
envisioned in the 1950's is here!
Flying cars. Get ready because the future is here! Well, not here, because that's just a concept for a new tire and not a thing that exists. This tire, while vertically oriented, functions like, you know, a tire. But when pivoted into a horizontal position becomes a rotor for the flying cars of the future! Goodyear, the company famous for blimps and I guess tires, revealed their new invention at the Geneva Motor Show in Switzerland last week and the world will never be the same.

So...it's bullshit and
they know its bullshit? Cool.
I mean that in the strictest sense. As in the world is constantly changing, but it has nothing to do with Goodyear's preposterous flying car tire which, and this is where I want to emphasize how pro-future I am, will never be a thing that exists. And that's not just the well-earned pessimism of someone who's watching the world slowly spiral into chaos and Twitter fights between grown-ass adults. According to the designers, the tire isn't really intended as something that will even make it to market.

Did you though? Imagine it, I mean. Or
did you just watch Back to the Future II?
"With mobility companies looking to the sky for the answer to the challenges of urban transport and congestion, our work on advanced tire architectures and materials led us to imagine a wheel that could serve both as a traditional tire on the road and as a propulsion system in the sky..."

-Chris Hessel, Goodyear's
chief-wait, you mean car companies?
I mean, who says 'mobility company?'

"If you can think of a better use for
$90 million, I'd like to hear it."

-Elon Musk, evidently
And are they looking to the sky? Is that a thing? I thought mobility companies were coming up with self-driving cars and pneumatic tube trains and things like that. The closest anyone's getting to looking at the sky was when that legitimately crazy, yet somehow incredibly rich guy who named his electric car company after a eugenicist, launched a car at Mars. I appreciate the importance of innovation and trying to come up with solutions no one has ever tried before but are we really thinking flying cars all the way through?

Look, I don't want to poo-poo Hessel or Goodyear's dumb-sorry-innovative idea, but everyone kind of drives like idiots. Is introducing the Z-axis into this really the best move?
Pictured: Goodyear's grim, yet innovative future where even
minor  fender-benders send glass and broken tail lights raining
 down on unsuspecting pedestrians at terminal velocities. 

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