In a news conference loaded with “Back to the Future” and “The Jetsons” references, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Monday that Florida would become a national hub for testing ultralight electric aircraft, generally considered the next frontier of electric vehicles.

Although many people call them “flying cars,” without wheels or landing gear, they’re more like human-sized drones that can take off or land without a runway. The industry refers to them as electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or eVTOLs.

Well, that should cut down the number of Floridians in the world…

Definitely an electric plane and it's marketed as an electric plane.

"Miami to Ft Lauderdale in 13min". Seems like a lot of work just to save about an hour of driving.

In recent years, Florida has sat on a pot of nearly $200 million it received from the federal government to add more EV chargers near highways. Even as most other states moved ahead with the program created by the bipartisan infrastructure law Congress passed in 2021, Florida lagged behind, frustrating EV advocates and gas stations that wanted to help build the chargers.

Now, the state is using that money for eVTOL projects, like an “Aerial Highway Network” that includes ports for the aircraft to charge, take off and land, according to documents obtained by the Miami Herald. It’s unclear if that’s the same project as the test track advancements DeSantis touted Monday.

Oh cool, they're doing it just to give a middle finger to EVs.

Ahhh, well that explains it. I should have known there was corruption involved.

These things have no pilot. Autonomous.

DeSantis told a small crowd that he can envision people flying over Interstate 4 to skip the traffic between Tampa and Orlando. “I don’t know how long the flight would be — not very long,” he said. “That is going to happen here in the state of Florida, and we’re excited for that.”

Man is sounding more like DJT every month.

Are these intended to someday be individually owned vehicles? Just going to move the congestion into the air, then.

I think that's why it hasn't happened yet. Just imagining people who blow stop signs, or driving drunk, or whatever other shitty driving thing there is to do while in the air, over people's houses and schools. I think that's why they were waiting for autodrive, but autodriving hasn't proven to be all that great yet. It's nightmare fuel.

Although I want to drive a flying car as much as the next person, consider how bad we are at controlling these things on the road. Adding a third dimension and at least two degrees of rotational freedom? To call these death traps would be a severe undersell.

But go ahead, Florida, blaze some trails.

I don't think the result will be trails so much as impact sites. The blazing part seems likely thought.