upvote
What was demonstrated was not flight.
reply
Out of curiosity, how do you define flight? To me, I think the Roadster flew because it clearly maintained powered propulsion after leaving the ground. Sure, it only flew for a few seconds, but it's not far from the Wright Bros.' first flight.
reply
Woody said:

> This isn't flying, it's falling with style.

reply
Being able to take off from the ground. Not using a second system to vacuum its way up to a platform and then fall slowly.

This machine demonstrated zero ability to gain altitude in the air alone.

reply
The Kickflip demo showed it taking off from the ground: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5vsHHPVhJg
reply
I don't think you watched the whole show. The third stunt was taking off from a stop to jump over some vehicles. So it did gain altitude in the air alone.
reply
Well color me corrected. I’d probably quibble that this was a hop/jump the same way humans can jump but not fly, but I don’t have a strong definition at that point to argue for.

I’d need to go deep into something like being able to maintain altitude in the medium of air without positive impulse or something, but again, I don’t have a strong enough definition at this point.

reply
Are you new? Flying concept cars have been around forever. It’s not a new thing.
reply
the timeline we're in is various adjectives including sad. reality never hits how you envision when you're 10.
reply
Out of curiosity, what is your sad P(>500 people owning a flying Tesla by 2030)?
reply
Why does it matter? Did you ask the same question in 2007-8 when the first Waymo cars were on the streets for testing?

No.

It’s a cool concept car, and very impressive engineering. I don’t get why people hate on it so much.

reply
I didn’t, because Waymo cars were proof of concept, not proof of wallet size.

It is very impressive engineering, just not very useful or ever going to result in any viable product. It’s a dead end. A waste of somebody’s engineering effort and talent for a one-time rich guy demo item. People hate on it because they get it.

reply
Must surely exceed P(AI doom)
reply
Zero. Maybe a dozen, non road legal ofc. And I'm not particularly sad about it. Sorry to disappoint.
reply