Bagelfish – A Weblog

Hovercars.

Hover technology in general. It sounds like a a great idea, a really typical veision of the future where everything is flying around. But also very mechanically/economically/environmentally a bad idea.

You’d think that having a hover car would be great… because it’s hovering! But when driving along, surely it’s the same as any normal car anyway, so there is seemingly little point in the technology. The main reason that hovering vehicles are unnecessary is a little thing called ‘roads’!

We have roads designed for wheeled automobiles to drive on! If the land was without roads and untraversible in a regular vehicle, then sure hovering cars aren’t too bad an idea… but the idea of using hover cars on normal roads is idiotic.

I have determined 3 main ways that hover technology could work;

1) Jets of air underneath the car propelling it upwards (not dissimilar to hovercraft technology). This idea doesn’t strike me as sensible, as there would have to be constant streams of concentrated powerful air blasting out underneath the car. This would (probably) require a complex pneumatic system, and would take up lots of energy. Not to mention the noise… It would be unbelievably loud! So this is not a workable concept with respect to hover technology.

2) Proper propulsion jets under the car. This is even less concieveable, as the amount of energy to do this would be immense, plus there would be horrendous emissions. To keep up a constant stream of this power is simply not possible. Two down, one to go…

3) Some sort of national magnet system. Roads would be fitted with electromagnets underneath them, and cars with something of the same polarity… so when they meet the road, the magnets repel and the car is lifted upwards. Now this is probably the hardest system to work out how to achieve, but would probably be the most environmentally friendly and energy efficient. However… it would almost certainly require the entitre national road system to be dug up so that massive magnets could be put underneath. So, maybe not such a great idea.

The concept of hover technology is just not plausible as a reality and should just be left to science fiction. It is complex, would use lots of energy and is, most of all, unnecessary.

If we want to look into fast, efficient and awesomely sci-fi transport, then I think that teleportation is a much better way to go. Of course… it still needs a little work, but it has the potential to be a fantastically useful transport system were it made possible! Sure, it would encourage laziness because people wouldn’t have to walk places… also it could potentially facilitate easier bank robberies,  but the fact is it would be great technology advancement as well as something totally new.

I imply that hover technology is not new. Well, there is no reason that we couldn’t develop the technology right now, but it’s the matter of uselessness. With hover technology, you still have to make the same journeys on the same roads, taking the same amount of time to reach your destination… the only difference? The massive waste of energy in doing so. I think that point has been over emphasised here… but it is one of only a few pretty major issues with the idea.

That’s about all I have to say really… except of course that regardless of what I’ve said, Back To The Future (II) is still awesome!

Song: ‘Lit – Miserable’