"Traffic in the air", The mystery of the Tesla Roadster and Flying Cars

So let's start with the hard truth.

Before we can even think about flying to work, there's a huge physical toll just to get off the ground.

Oh, absolutely.

The physics of the hover are incredibly unforgiving.

Let's use that concept of a vehicle with compressed gas thrusters as a starting point.

Okay, lay it on me.

So imagine a vehicle sitting on the pavement that weighs, say, 1,000 kilograms.

Just sitting there, because gravity is pulling it toward the center of the Earth, that vehicle exerts approximately 9,810 neatons of downward force.

OK, 9,810 newtons.

So that's just the baseline tax that gravity charges for the car to just exist on the road.

Precisely.

Now, if that vehicle wants to hover using vertical thrusters, its propulsion system has to constantly generate at least 9,810 newtons of upward thrust.

Just to cancel out the gravity.

Right.

Not to fly forward, not to climb higher, just to float a few feet off the ground completely static.

And it has to keep doing that for every single second it remains in the air.

I mean, I want to break down how a car actually goes about generating that kind of upward force.

Because, you know, an engine turning wheels on pavement is easy to visualize.

But pushing against thin air feels a bit more abstract.

Yeah, it relies entirely on Newton's third law of motion.

You know, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Right.

Classic high school physics.

Exactly.

So in a cold gas thruster system, you have this high pressure tank filled with gas.

So let's start with the hard truth.

Before we can even think about flying to work, there's a huge physical toll just to get off the ground.

Oh, absolutely.

The physics of the hover are incredibly unforgiving.

Let's use that concept of a vehicle with compressed gas thrusters as a starting point.

Okay, lay it on me.

So imagine a vehicle sitting on the pavement that weighs, say, 1,000 kilograms.

Just sitting there, because gravity is pulling it toward the center of the Earth, that vehicle exerts approximately 9,810 neatons of downward force.

OK, 9,810 newtons.

So that's just the baseline tax that gravity charges for the car to just exist on the road.

Precisely.

Now, if that vehicle wants to hover using vertical thrusters, its propulsion system has to constantly generate at least 9,810 newtons of upward thrust.

Just to cancel out the gravity.

Right.

Not to fly forward, not to climb higher, just to float a few feet off the ground completely static.

And it has to keep doing that for every single second it remains in the air.

I mean, I want to break down how a car actually goes about generating that kind of upward force.

Because, you know, an engine turning wheels on pavement is easy to visualize.

But pushing against thin air feels a bit more abstract.

Yeah, it relies entirely on Newton's third law of motion.

You know, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Right.

Classic high school physics.

Exactly.

So in a cold gas thruster system, you have this high pressure tank filled with gas.