• Question: what is the future of travelling? Can we soon travel by hover cars?

    Asked by CharlieBrown to Alan, Becky, Jo, Sankar, Sarah on 11 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Sarah Kirk

      Sarah Kirk answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      At the moment I think that magnetic levitation (Maglev) trains are the future. They use magnets to lift and propel the train along, at really high speeds – up to 430km/h! There are already three up and running in Japan, China and South Korea and there are plans for more in the future. So maybe no hover cars soon, but hover trains!

    • Photo: Becky Gregory

      Becky Gregory answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      I think in terms of travelling by car, the set up we currently have involving all the road systems that are in place, it would be a large upheaval to suddenly change to hover cars (if somehow that technology became widely and easily available). So, I think cars on roads will still be around for a long time.

      However, some other form of transport could become possible in the future. I hope that the floaty chairs (or at least some sort of floaty pod) like in the film WALL-E will become popular!

    • Photo: Alan McCue

      Alan McCue answered on 11 Mar 2015:

      I think hover boards or hover cars might be some way off yet but there is a lot of research announced this year about cars which can drive themselves. So I suspect the near future will involve these.

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