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This is the third of our 3-part series on The Future of the Car, for Sifted members. Part 1 looked at startups making cars more sustainable, beyond just an electric battery. In part 2, we looked at what becomes possible when a car becomes a smartphone on wheels.

We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters, Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist famously lamented some ten years ago, disappointed that tech developments had focused on software and apps rather than hardware and deep tech.

But Thiel only needed a little patience. Flying cars are actually on the cusp of arriving not just the electric taxi jets being developed by Lilium and Joby, but cars that can drive on regular roads as well as taking to the air. The first of these from Pal-V in the Netherlands is road and air certified.

These three startups were featuring all promise to have a product for sale next year.

Other strange form-factors are coming too: for example, morphing cars that can get skinnier to get around traffic and solar-powered cars that take away the dependency on electric charging stations.

So while the concept cars at auto industry events still look pretty tame and familiar, startups are creating a range of functionalities and form factors that will entirely change our idea of what a car looks like and what it can do. And these are not distant pipe dreams. These three startups were featuring all promise to have a product for sale next year.

People often talk about flying cars when referring to new types of light electric aircraft such as Volocopter and Lilium. But these are not really flying cars you cant drive them down a public road.

But cars that can morph from a real road vehicle into an aircraft and back are being developed albeit with much less fanfare and funding and the first of them will be available for customers to buy from next year.

The Liberty, made by Dutch startup Pal-V, is a two-person, three-wheel vehicle with giant gyrocopter blades on its roof. When it is driving mode these fold down and tuck onto the roof of the car, turning into a vehicle that is just 4m long and 1.7m high, the size of a normal car. It runs on ordinary E95 fuel, available from any petrol station so you truly can fly it and then drive it home from the airfield, filling it up at the local service station before parking it in a domestic garage.

With this vehicle, you can go from any door to any door.

The idea of fly-drive cars was to take away the hassle of air travel, says Robert Dingemanse, cofounder and CEO. When you fly you always spend a lot of time having to get to and from the airport, he points out. With this vehicle, you can go from any door to any door.

There are a few other startups working on similar concepts, but their fortunes have been mixed. In June, AirCar, a prototype car made by Slovakian entrepreneur and inventor Stefan Klein, completed a 35-minute flight between Nitra and Bratislava. But this was flying on an experimental licence that allows people to fly aircraft that they have built themselves. It is still a long way from receiving a licence for commercial use.

Meanwhile, in the US, Terrafugia, which has been working on a flying car design since 2006, has struggled to produce any aircraft. It was bought by Chinese carmaker Geely in 2017 but has recently shut down most of its US operations.

Both AirCar and Terragia have designs involving wings that fold out from the sides of the car a design that Dingemanse says can be much more difficult to get right than the top-mounted gyroscope route that Pal-V chose.

Pal-V is the first to jump through all the hoops with both road and air regulators. It received road certification for its Liberty aircar last year and is on the last stage of getting certification from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). But even for Pal-V the road has been long, says Dingemanse the company has been working on the vehicle since 2007.

There is a lot of underestimation of the certification process. It takes even the big companies like Bell and Airbus 10 years to certify a new vehicle. To get a car certified you need five or six tests. For air certification we had to get 1500 test reports signed off before we could do our first manned flight, says Dingemanse.

The Pal-V Liberty will be priced between 300,000 and 500,000.

Orders for the Liberty are starting to come in at a steady pace. Priced at somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 it wont be cheap and buyers will also need to invest money and time in getting a pilots licence (around 45 hours of flying). Nevertheless, Dingemanse says the company is getting around one order a week, and the team has been surprised by the strength of demand. It is not just coming from rich people looking for a new toy, he adds, there has also been interest from the Dutch police and emergency services.

Pal-V is now looking to raise additional funding from investors to help expand to meet demand.

Just how much demand there will be for flying cars remains to be seen. Morgan Stanley has forecast that the urban aviation market overall will be worth $1tn by 2040 although most of that is likely to be taxi-like services like the ones being built by Volocopter and Lilium, rather than privately-owned vehicles. Still, there is a sizeable market for light aircraft and if flying cars can carve out part of this, they could have a viable business.

In 2013, Martijn Lammers and his soon-to-be cofounders took part in the first World Solar Challenge, a 3,000km race through the Australian outback in solar-powered vehicles. Most of the cars taking part were small, single-seater racing cars; theirs was a four-seater family sized car.

There were lots of cars with two seats, but we were the first to make a four-seater, explains Lammers, and with that car, we won the race.

From there, Lammers and his team formed Lightyear with the aim of bringing solar-powered cars to market and, eventually, make them as affordable as a standard car.

The cars are fitted with solar cells across the roof and front of the vehicle. Part of the challenge, Lammers explains, is about making the car as efficient as possible so the battery can power it for longer.

40% of people never have to charge their cars.

The cars motors are located within each wheel, eliminating axles and other components that create friction and take up energy. Theres very few moving parts, just the wheels that are directly driven by the motors. That efficiency enables you to go further with less energy so your battery can be smaller, says Lammers.

Lightyears cars can currently run for 725km, with 70km of that coming from solar and the rest from electric charging. If someone drives less than 70km, their journey will be entirely powered by solar. In the end, many of the drivers go way less than 70km a day, so youll see your battery filling out because youre not using that energy every day.

Lammers estimates that itll mean 40% of people never have to charge their cars.

It does depend on geographical location, however. Northern Europe will get about 6-7,000km of solar-powered driving a year, but sunnier places like California or Southern Europe could get double that.

The goal is energy autonomy freeing up electric vehicles from having to stop and charge regularly. The lack of charging points is often cited as a roadblock to consumers investing in electric vehicles.

The cars will cost 150k each.

Next year, Lightyears first car, the Lightyear One, will come to market, with a batch of 946 cars delivered to customers (theyve chosen 946 because a light-year is 9.46k trillion km.) The cars are being manufactured in Finland and will cost 150k each.

Then in 2024, Lightyear plans to bring out a more mass-market model.

We expect to be able to launch a much more affordable version which is very much price wise comparable with what youd pay for an average car at the moment, says Lammers. We really want to get to the point where people dont have to think about whether they can afford an electric vehicle.

Getting around in congested cities and finding a parking space are the big headaches of urban mobility. A number of car manufacturers are responding with much smaller vehicles, but Polish startup Triggo goes one step further, making a morphing electric car, with a wheel-base that squeezes in to become almost as narrow as a motorbike.

I wanted to create a vehicle that was as efficient as a motorcycle, but as comfortable and safe as a car.

As a motorcyclist, founder Rafal Budweil always enjoyed the agility of nipping in between traffic but knew many people found two-wheeled driving risky.

I wanted to create a vehicle that was as efficient as a motorcycle, but as comfortable and safe as a car, he says.

The 2-seater Triggo can go from cruising mode where its wheelbase is 148cm wide and it can drive at 90km per hour to manoeuvring mode, where the wheels squeeze to just 86cm wide, allowing it to nip around city traffic jams. In this mode, the top speed is limited to just 35km per hour.

Budweil started developing the first prototype in 2015 and says getting the vehicle to be stable was the first and hardest hurdle. The next challenge was to manufacture it as simply as possible to make it something that could be produced in large volumes.

The electric car has been road-tested over the last year, and the first commercial vehicles are expected to be out in the second half of last year, a little later than the company originally planned.

The car is designed to be a city vehicle, with its limited speeds, and Budweil isnt planning to sell the vehicle to individual owners, but to create fleets of 500 to 1000 for a shared-mobility service in cities like London or Paris. There is also interest from Asian countries, he told Sited.

Car-sharing has been a difficult business for many companies. Companies like Car2Go had to pull back from several markets and Autolib had its contract with the city of Paris terminated early. High running costs and competition from ride-hailing services like Uber were partly to blame. But Budweil believes the superslim design of the Triggo can help overcome some of the challenges.

User in car-sharing schemes are afraid they wont find parking spaces, so the ease of parking a Triggo will be an advantage, he told Sifted. The vehicle is only about the size of a normal car.

In addition to being nippy in traffic, the Triggo has other interesting features, such as a swappable battery so you dont have to spend long periods of time charging the EV. It can also be driven remotely at very low speeds in order to return the vehicles to a parking hub. This, again, could help get rid of one of the main car-sharing headaches how to get the car back to its designated spot.

There are also plans for a stretch version, which would be able to fit three people inside.

Turning the Triggo into a mobility service would help attract more investors, adds Budweil. Investors tend to be nervous about hardware companies but like the recurring revenues of a service model.

Budweil is looking for new investors as the company gets closer to commercial production. So far Triggo has been funded by EU public funds and private investors. Budweil says the company is still considering whether to build its own facility for building the Triggo something which would need a lot more investment or whether to subcontract the work.

These are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of new forms coming out from car sector startups.

None of these vehicles solar, morphing or flying will come cheap to start off with. At half a million euros the Pal-V Liberty isnt likely to be a mass-market vehicle. Even the Lightyear, at 150,000 will be firmly in the luxury bracket.

But these startups are pushing the boundaries of what we understand a car to be, and they are doing the groundwork with road and air regulators that will pave the way for others to come after them. They will be a good testing ground for consumer appetite.

Within the decade at least some of these may have become the norm. Car companies should be keeping a close eye on developments.

Maija Palmer is Sifteds innovation editor. She covers deeptech and corporate innovation, and tweets from @maijapalmer.

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Flying, morphing and sun-powered really futuristic cars are coming - Sifted

The Italian Navy released the first cleared photos of the bridge of its latest class of surface combatant, the Multipurpose Offshore Patrol ship (PPA), and it looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Xavier Vavasseur 23 Sep 2021

The Italian Navy released the first cleared photos of the bridge of its latest class of surface combatant, the Multipurpose Offshore Patrol ship (PPA), and it looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.

According to the Italian Navy release (which announced the qualification of the first bridge officers for the first-in-class ship, ITS Thaon di Revel), the Naval Cockpit is:

an integrated station that allows the conduct of the ship as well as sea and air operations by only two operators, the Pilot and the Copilot, who fulfill the duties of Officer of the Watch on the bridge and Commander. From this location it is in fact possible to manage both the machines, the rudders, the platform systems and the combat system at the highest level

The Naval Cockpit, designed by Italian defense electronics company Leonardo and local shipbuilder Fincantieri, really is inspired by the aerospace domain: Pilot and Copilot use joysticks, engine throttles and control wheels (very reminiscent to yokes found in aircraft cockpits) to drive the ship. A central console located between the two sailors and featuring a large number of switches, lights and knobs add to that aircraft cockpit feel:

For many months, staff training has begun during the numerous sea trips dedicated to the new class of Patrol Vessels. Navigations that have allowed the officers designated to this new position to undergo practical training of the on job training type. Another part of the training course took place both at the Navy Bodies on simulation systems, and at the Leonardo and Seastema companies, with the attendance of preparatory courses: in fact, 2 weeks took place at the Navy Programming Center to which they did followed by another 2 weeks for the Platform System part and another week for the Combat System. From now on, this will therefore be the training path that officers will have to follow to learn about this innovative system and conduct the navigation and air-naval operations of the new Offshore Multipurpose Patrol vessels of the Thaon di Revel class. Path that led to the delivery of the first Naval Cockpit Certificates.

Italian Navy statement

The launching ceremony of the first the Multipurpose Offshore Patrol Ship (PPA)Paolo Thaon di Reveltook placeon June 15 2019at Fincantieris shipyard in Muggiano (La Spezia). The first ship-in-class started sea trialson November 19. 2019. It is set to be commissioned this year. The second vessel of the class, Francesco Morosini, was launchedon 22 May 2020. The third ship, Raimondo Montecuccoli, was launched in March 2021 and just started sea trials according to OCCAR.

Based on a common platform, PPAs will be delivered in three configurations with incremental capabilities: Light, Light+ and Full. The first two ships are in the Light version and the third one is a Light+. The PPA full version will see its total displacement increased to 6,270 tons (compared to 5,880 tons for the light+ version and 5830 tons for the light version). PPA full will thus be comparable to Italian FREMM type frigates (total displacement of 6900 tons). The crew complement of the PPA full configuration should be 173 people.

The sensor and weapon suite of these patrol ships is quite impressive, as the PPA in full configuration will be fitted withthe Leonardo dual-band radar system AFAR (C and X bands), which provides missile defense capabilities as well as a towed and hull mounted sonar.

The armament of the ship should include the SAAM-ESD anti-aircraft missile system with 16 vertical launchers for Aster 15 and Aster 30 SAM, eight Teseo / Otomat Mk 2A Evolutio anti-ship missiles, a 127-mm / 64 Leonardo LW main gun and a 76mm secondary gun with Strales / Davide guided ammunition, two 25-mm remote weapon systems, two 533-mm torpedo launchers. The hangar will be able to accommodate two NH90 or a single AW101 helicopter. At the stern of the ship there is a ramp to quickly launch and recover a 11-meter RHIB, as well as two so-called modular zones with the possibility of placing there a total of 13 standard containers for reconfigurable payload.

PPA Specifications

133 meters longbetween perpendiculars (143 meters overall) Speed more than 31 knots depending on vessel configuration and operational conditions Crew of 171 sailors Equipped with a combined diesel, a gas turbine plant (CODAG) and an electric propulsion system Capacity to supply drinking water to land Capacity to provide electricity to land with 2000 kw of power 2 modular zones at the stern and at the center of the ship that allow the embarking of various types of containerized operating/logistic/residential/healthcare modules (in particular, the stern area may receive and handle within a covered area up to 5 modules in ISO 20 containers, while the central zone may receive and handle up to 8 ISO 20 containers)

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Check Out the Futuristic 'Naval Cockpit' of the Italian Navy's PPA - Naval News

Unsurprisingly, the forecast on the "hot Saturn" world WASP-127b calls for thick clouds.Weather Channel

Thanks to a combination of observations from both terrestrial and orbital telescopes, a team of scientists got their closest look yet at the distant exoplanet WASP-127b.

Not only were scientists able to determine the chemical composition of the exoplanets atmosphere, but they even managed to study its clouds at an unprecedented level of detail, according to research presented at the ongoing Europlanet Science Congress 2021 by University of Montreal researcher Romain Allart. Thats impressive on its own, but Allart said in a Europlanet press release that the techniques they developed can now help scientists take a better look and gather new data on other exoplanets that are even farther away.

WASP-127b the same exoplanet that rapper Lil Uzi Vert once claimed to be purchasing is whats called a hot Saturn world, or an exoplanet with roughly the same mass as the gas giant Saturn,but which orbits much closer to its host star than Saturn does.

In the new research, which combined data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the ESPRESSO spectrograph at the European Southern Observatorys Very Large Telescope, researchers determined that the exoplanets atmosphere contains unexpected levels of sodium and water vapor, both of which are lingering at unusually low altitudes beneath a layer of clouds. They were also able to measure atmospheric pressure and cloud altitude, though the clouds still remain mysterious in other ways.

We dont yet know the composition of the clouds, except that they are not composed of water droplets like on Earth, Allart said in the press release. We are also puzzled about why the sodium is found in an unexpected place on this planet. Future studies will help us understand not only more about the atmospheric structure, but about WASP-127b, which is proving to be a fascinating place.

READ MORE: Cloud-spotting on a distant exoplanet [Europlanet]

More on WASP-127b: Rapper Says Hes Buying an Entire Planet

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Scientists Manage to Study Weather on Planet in Different Solar System - Futurism

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A team of scientists say theyve identified a possible new way to treat Parkinsons disease and improve the quality of life for patients thanks,in a strange twist, to a protein named after the video game character Sonic the Hedgehog.

In patients with Parkinsons, the brain loses the neurons that produce the brain molecule dopamine. Treatments exist to replace dopamine with a molecule called L-dopa, but doing so also tends to cause involuntary tremors known as L-dopa induced dyskinesia (LID).

However, coupling L-dopa treatment with agonists that increase the activity of a protein named sonic hedgehog (Shh) seems to prevent those tremors, according to animal research published in the journal Communications Biology on Wednesday. The discovery not only reveals new insight into sonic hedgehogs previously unknown role as a neurotransmitter, but could also lead to better, more accessible treatments for Parkinsons Disease patients if, that is, the animal research translates to human patients.

Typically, tremors are counteracted by deep brain stimulation, so the emergence of a less complicated treatment could make a huge difference in the lives of patients who have Parkinsons.

Deep brain stimulation doesnt help everyone, its very invasive, and not all people are eligible for the surgery, study coauthor and CUNY School of Medicine professor Andreas Kottmann said in a press release. The procedure is also not accessible to everyone.

Sonic hedgehog, which, yes, is inhibited by another protein called Robotnikinin, helps embryos form, but scientists had no idea it also functions as a neurotransmitter. By discovering that the same dopamine-producing neurons killed off by Parkinsons also produce Shh, the CUNY scientists say they have a better shot at restoring a Parkinsons patients brain to its healthiest, pre-disease state because they know now to replace more of the molecules eradicated by the disease.

Thats still a long way off,not the least because this current research was conducted on mice and primates. But if future studies continue to show a therapeutic benefit, we may soon find ourselves with better and more accessible treatment for a debilitating neurological condition.

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Brain Protein Named After Sonic the Hedgehog May Be Key to Treating Parkinson's - Futurism

SAIC Design has unveiled the MG MAZE concept, a compact two-seater concept study aimed at the next generation of car users, specifically people who want to do interactive and multimedia-related things inside their vehicles, other than simply driving from point A to point B.

Heres how that works: theres a sophisticated UI covering the entire front of the car, with a 3D map, avatar status and mission information. Players can build their status by discovering Easter Eggs, using the overlaying of images and digital content from the occupants perspective.

Sounds cool right? Well, you havent seen anything yet, because the actual driving aspect might just be the most interesting feature. Once you climb into the Zero gravity seats, you can drive this vehicle using nothing but your smartphone in order to steer.

As for all the visual and mechanical highlights, we count the canopy-like top, the transparent shell (emulating high-end gaming PCs with their exposed componentry) and a visible chassis, housing the motors and interchangeable battery in a plug and play style configuration.

With MAZE we wanted to consider what the future of a car community might look like, building MGs fan base and following. The move to digital is unstoppable, so we wanted to create a concept that connected this digital realm to the physical one that gives us the real joy in driving, said Carl Gotham, advanced design director.

The concept is a reaction to our lives during recent months, where we have been met with restrictions and limitations on our ability to move around and interact. Exploring the idea of mobile gaming, we used MAZE as a platform for people to get out and rediscover their environment in a new and relevant way, opening up new experiences with their city, he added.

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MG MAZE Concept Proves That Futuristic Pod-Like Vehicles Don't Have To Look Boring - autoevolution

As ice melts, the crust seems to warp for hundreds of miles.Elastic Earth

As rising temperatures melt Arctic ice at an alarming rate, the resulting rise in the sea level stands to reshape coastlines around the world. But the effects on the planet itself may be even more dramatic, according to a new study on how melting ice physically reshapes the Earths crust.

The outermost layer of our planet is surprisingly elastic, according to research published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters last month. In the study, Harvard scientists discovered that the crust rebounds outward after the ice on top of it melts away, but doesnt always return to a perfectly spherical shape.

The study shows that these deformations are not only larger than scientists thought, but also that they can have significant influences on ecosystems in anarea for thousands of years.

For example, parts of the crust around the Arctic are still expanding like an extremely slow balloon after the weight of the ice age which ended 11,000 years ago was lifted off of it. As even more ice melts away thanks to climate change, the expansions and warping effects are compounded, creating an increasingly-complex landscape.

On recent timescales, we think of the Earth as an elastic structure, like a rubber band, whereas on timescales of thousands of years, the Earth acts more like a very slow-moving fluid. Harvard planetary scientist Sophie Coulson said in a press release. Ice age processes take a really, really long time to play out, and therefore we can still see the results of them today.

Being able to monitor this ballooning is valuable for scientists. Understanding how the earth is changing shape makes it easier to study and predict tectonic movements, earthquakes, and other geological processes, Coulson said in the release.

But it also has implications for climate change. As Antarctic ice melts and the crust pushes outward, Coulson said, it may deform and push bedrock out of position, further displacing ice and creating a vicious cycle leading to even greater melting.

READ MORE: Melting of polar ice shifting Earth itself, not just sea levels [Harvard University]

More on melting ice: Switzerland Covers Glacier With Giant Blankets To Keep It From Melting

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Harvard Study: Melting Polar Ice Is Physically Warping the Planet - Futurism

The prophetic art of Mystic Meg is taken to extremes in new science fiction show Foundation, Apple TV+s long-awaited adaptation of one of Isaac Asimovs most famous stories. It is based around the idea of psychohistory, a fictional science which uses history, sociology and mathematics to predict the future of large populations.

But instead of using it to play the lottery, its inventor (a genius called Hari Seldon) uses psychohistory to predict that the galactic empire he is living under will collapse within 300 years prompting him to put in motion plans to grow a new one.

Asimov modelled psychohistory on the kinetic theory of gases, where its difficult to predict the behaviour of a single molecule in a gas, but easier to predict the movements of a large collective. Throughout his series of books, it is used to forecast with alarming accuracy the comings of various Seldon Crises, often taking the form of war, political upheaval or systemic inertia.

It is an idea with obvious similarities to real-life fields of futurism, but how similar is it? Tom Cheesewright, a futurist who has advised companies such as Facebook and Google, doesnt predict psychohistory becoming a reality any time soon.

If everyones behaviour was predictable, you could calculate the future based on where we are at any time, he says. It would be like lining up a trick shot in snooker with seven billion balls in a row. It would be incredibly complicated and need more computing power than we probably have today, but ultimately you could calculate the outcome.

However, were not like snooker balls. Our behaviour might be different on any given day influenced by what we ate, or how well we slept by factors that are not just complex but incalculable. We cannot calculate the future with that much certainty.

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Cheesewright adds that Asimovs theory is even more unworkable now than it was in the 1940s and 50s, thanks to technology fragmenting society into myriads of tribes. Large groups seem to be getting smaller, he says, and it has made social trend analysis harder. You talk to a teenager now and say, who are the two tribes in your school and theyll just look at you blankly.

He also touches upon an issue explored in Foundation itself: if a population gains knowledge of the future, will their behaviour change enough to thwart the coming of that future? The more robust your prediction, the more attention people pay to it, the more effect your predictions are going to have on the future. And that feels like an unsolvable conundrum to me.

Rather than deal in deterministic prophecy like psychohistory, futurists like Cheesewright tend to deal more in analysis and probabilities. One big company rang me up and said weve had eight consecutive record years and then everything fell apart. We didnt see it coming. Can you help us make sure we see it coming next time?

Cheesewright will then look at the intersection between existing pressures and incoming trends, along with analysing data and interviewing people at every level of the industry, before preparing a variety of probable futures and solutions. Its mostly about recognising patterns and convincing people of things that they dont want to believe in.

Unsurprisingly, the further in the future you go, the more unstable predictions become. The what is usually straight forward, Cheesewright explains. But the further you look into the future, its the when that gets harder.

He uses the possibility of automation eliminating a large percentage of jobs within the next 50 years as an example. Will we do it? Yes, I think so. How fast will we do it? Well, thats a very different question. Will we do it so slowly that we find either an alternative economic model or create a whole new range of industries we cant even envision yet? Or will we do it relatively quickly and cause rapid disruption to employment? Both remain possible.

Leah Harvey as Salvor Hardin Apple TV+

The obvious question for any futurist of course is what their big predictions for the future are. The most misunderstood one is the shift into the metaverse, he says, referring to the idea that the virtual and physical worlds will eventually blur. It is not us living in virtual reality. Its you being able to have your avatar being visible to people as you walk down the street. Thats undoubtedly coming.

In the longer term theres also self-driving cars. Thats going to happen, but the idea of a truly autonomous vehicle that can pick you up and whisk you off to your destination is much further out than people think.

And then, of course, theres Earths very own Seldon Crisis: the looming spectre of climate change.

Ive done quite a lot of work on the future of food in the last few years and the impact of climate change on that, says Cheesewright. If we get some of the predicted impacts on rainfall, for example, we will get large parts of the wheat-growing regions suddenly subjected to either drought or flood and in some cases both.

So suddenly, wheat gets much more expensive. All your classic staples in terms of pasta, bread, pizza, which have been cheap, suddenly start to become quite expensive. Are there other alternative grains? Are we going to shift to different growing regions? There are all sorts of interesting possibilities there.

Tom is a futurist with experience in broadcasting, writing and speaking on the subject. He has appeared on TV and radio across the BBC, Channel 4, 5, and Sky News, and he has consulted for Facebook and Google.

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Apple TV+'s new sci-fi Foundation: The real-life science of predicting the future - BBC Science Focus Magazine