91ɫ��Ƭ

• Onwards and upwards as Sunswift finishes fifth in Bridgestone World Solar Challenge

• Growing EV popularity is leading to queues at fast chargers. Could a kerbside charger network help?

• A new ad campaign is pushing Australians to use less petrol. Has this happened before?

• ‘Blood cobalt’ is disappearing from batteries – and cheaper, cleaner batteries are arriving

Neil Martin  00:06

Welcome to 91ɫ��Ƭ’s Engineering the Future podcast. In this episode, we'll answer a big question: are electric vehicles guaranteed to dominate the market by 2050 or might there be a better alternative to fuel our cars?

Richard Hopkins  00:24

We're all being encouraged that electrification is the way to go, which arguably it possibly is, but maybe battery technology, and certainly the existing battery technology, lithium-ion, isn't necessarily future proof. Consumers will ultimately make a choice largely driven upon their wallets rather than the environment most of the time.

Neil Martin  00:46

That's 91ɫ��Ƭ Professor of Practice Richard Hopkins, Team Principal of Sunswift Racing, who says the cars of the future could be running on hydrogen or biofuels and may well be driving themselves if technical challenges can be overcome. On Engineering the Future, we speak to experts and researchers who are embracing cutting-edge ideas and pushing the boundaries of what is truly possible. Join us as we discover how world-changing action starts with fearless thinking on Engineering the Future of Cars. 

Hello, and welcome to Engineering the Future of Cars. My name is Neil Martin, and I'm a journalist and STEM communicator working in the Faculty of Engineering at 91ɫ��Ƭ. Joining me today to discuss how automotive technology and functionality could radically change by 2050 is Richard Hopkins Professor of Practice at 91ɫ��Ƭ and Team Principal of Sunswift Racing. Sunswift is 91ɫ��Ƭ's world-renowned student-led electric vehicle project, which is the current Guinness World Record holder for fastest EV over 1000 kilometers on a single charge. Richard was previously head of operations at the Red Bull Formula One team, playing a pivotal role as they went from never winning a Grand Prix to claiming four consecutive drivers and constructors world titles between 2010 and 2013. Richard's latest project is P-ONE Technology, an R&D agency partnering with 91ɫ��Ƭ that aims to turn research into commercially viable solutions that make a real impact. Welcome to the podcast, Richard. 

Richard Hopkins  02:32

Hi, Neil. Thanks for having me along. I've been looking forward to today.

Neil Martin  02:36

And so have we. I know these episodes are called Engineering the Future, but I wanted to start, maybe with a little bit of history to put into context where maybe we are today, currently with cars going all the way back to 1908,  nearly 120 years ago, and the first affordable mass-produced automobile, Ford's famous Model T, rolls off the production line,

Richard Hopkins  03:01

Available in any color, as long as it's black. 

Neil Martin  03:03 

Exactly, it seems to me that from that moment, and for many decades, right up until the 21st century, nothing much really changed. In that people filled up a car with fossil fuel, they got behind the wheel and drove themselves from point A to point B, and the vehicle itself didn't really do very much, apart from help get them there. But it seems that that's changing, and at the moment we have a significant number of greener and cleaner cars on the road. There are cars in certain parts of the world driving themselves, and the vehicles themselves are getting ever more smarter and interactive. Do you agree with that general assessment? And if so, how exciting is it for you and also the general public, I guess, to finally be at a point where revolution in the automotive technology world appears to be imminent.

Richard Hopkins  04:00

It's exciting. Look, I'm a car guy, as you well know. I love my cars, and I love technology. So, to be able to sort of work in an industry and have had a career that has been able to blend those two together is fantastic. Whether it be in motorsport or not. We are on a journey. We're on an accelerated journey now. There's so much more impetus on an effect on electrification or changing what we do. You're absolutely right. You know, in 120 years, not a lot had changed. You know, it's funny, weird thing to think, but I was, I was driving my car the other day, and I was just in my environment, thinking that you know we've still got pedals in the car to make the car go and the car to stop, and we've got a steering wheel, and we, you know, and even the sun visor, you know, we've done nothing there really in those basic fundamentals over those years. They existed many years ago, and how innovation and technology has been fairly stagnant over that period, but I suppose, as the world has become ever more conscious of its environment, and transport has such a big effect on that environment, cars, buses, trains, and so forth, that you know something had to be done, and governments around the world have made claims, and bold claims, to sort of encourage that change has taken a stand. And it's an unusual one, really, in as far as you know, I can't remember really anything else where governments have really forced change upon consumers in such a way. If you can imagine years ago, the switch from vinyl to cassette, you know, to CD to Spotify, you know, nobody has really forced us to make that change - it's just kind of naturally happened. Evolution has, and consumer sort of needs have made changes, whether it be introduction in technology of ABS brakes and safety devices, you know, those things have sort of come along naturally, but this road to electrification and all those other things that you may have mentioned, including autonomous vehicles, is an exciting one.

Neil Martin  06:20

I used the word revolution. I think there, do you think that's a fair word in the next 20 or 30 years? Do you see that pace of change happening really increasingly?

Richard Hopkins  06:31

I'm gonna, I'm gonna answer that with yes and no. There's certainly some feelings today that we're possibly approaching a level of saturation within certainly EV uptake, those early adopters. It's such a big societal change that we're asking for, and humans, a creature of habit, you know, even if we provide here in Sydney, my journey over here today, you know, T2 lanes and T3 lanes. We encourage people, if you put more people in your car, if you ride share, you're going to have a much more efficient drive to work, but you still look around you and there's just one person in every car. So, you know, we can ask the question nicely, we can sort of encourage that change, but people will still want to make those decisions. So as much as governments are forcing change upon us, I think still society still in some ways forges its own path, so it's going to be interesting to watch. 

Neil Martin  07:33 

We might dive into each of those elements one by one, and you mentioned there about electric vehicles. Some people might think that the rise of electric vehicles is inevitable. Do you think that's correct, or are there viable alternatives?

Richard Hopkins  07:48

I think there's viable alternatives. I don't know if you're old enough, Neil, to remember VHS or VTM. Unfortunately, I was maybe trying to flatter you there, but if you, if you look at those two technologies, and how one ultimately won, but the one that that succeeded wasn't necessarily the best technology. Betamax was always known for superior quality, but maybe it was down to Sony and some other factors that pushed VHS into the mainstream, and maybe that we can create a bit of a parallel from that to what we're seeing today, where we're all being encouraged that, you know, electrification is the way to go, which arguably it possibly is, but maybe battery technology, and certainly the existing battery technology, lithium-ion, isn't necessarily, you know, future proof. And I think the technology there, and the research that's being done around alternative battery technology is fascinating, because the current solution isn't sustainable. You know, how we produce that technology isn't necessarily totally friendly to the environment. So I think, you know, as we move forward, as evolution goes, and innovation happens, I think we'll find better and friendlier solutions to battery technology, but there's other alternatives aside from that.

Neil Martin  09:11

And what are those other alternatives that you see that could be increasingly popular?

Richard Hopkins  09:17

I think hydrogen certainly has a part to play. It's funny, you know, you can wake up one day and the world's lauding the fact that hydrogen is the answer, and then the next day it's not. It does have some challenges, but hey, I'm sure going back to, you know, the invention of the motor vehicle and the internal combustion engine, and there is a transition. I wasn't around back then, but the transition from horse and cart to car probably came across some, you know, disbelievers and some challenges, but look at where that, you know, we say that largely the automobile is kind of the same, but the advances and the efficiencies that have been developed in the internal combustion engine are incredible. So I think hydrogen will have a part to play.

Neil Martin  10:05 

I mean, you talk about the challenges with hydrogen. What are the pros and cons? Do you think from..

Richard Hopkins  10:10

It's how we produce hydrogen is one. At the moment, still it takes a lot of energy to produce an energy, so.. so why kind of bother is one argument, and its density and everything else you know, and what it actually gives you back has question marks. Certainly in some applications, I think in, you know, large shipping around the world, probably yes, maybe buses and trains and trucks, possibly yes. In cars, it has a bit of a question there, but you know, hydrogen, whether it be fuel cell technology, there's also alternatives, combusting hydrogen or ammonia. So I think we're still early in the journey, and I think once we, you know, when we talk about society, today's society wants fixes today. If I'm going to buy an electric car today, I want to be able to charge it on every street corner, and certainly that's not the case, and that has its challenges. But maybe years ago, you know, we talk about the Model T, maybe we're a little bit more forgiving, and when our Model T broke down, which invariably they did, it was just, you know, everybody had a little bit more patience, and I don't think we have that today. But we're on a journey, and it's still quite in relatively relative terms, a fast one. So, we know more than we've ever known today, and we put focus on innovation and research like never before. So, we're intent on finding those solutions to the problems we have, and if it is the environment that's driving that forward, rather than governments telling us what to do, then hopefully we're doing the right thing. But is it fast enough? Probably for some, no. But let's be real with what can be achieved,

Neil Martin  11:56

And I guess there's still the dominant car sales, my understanding, dominant is still internal combustion engine cars running on fossil fuels. What do you think still needs to be done for people to be making that change?

Richard Hopkins  12:11

Look, it's still, you know, if you're going to buy Car X as an internal combustion engine car or car X as a full EV, there's a price point difference. The infrastructure to recharge that car certainly has its challenges here in Australia, maybe less so in other countries. Government subsidies aren't quite what they were maybe 10 years ago globally to encourage people to make that switch, and the cost of energy. So you know, we say yes, charging an EV is going to save the planet. I'm doing that in inverted commas, because that's not totally the case, but the cost of energy means that actually to charge your EV may ultimately be more expensive than filling it full of petrol or diesel. So consumers will ultimately make a choice largely driven upon their wallets rather than the environment most of the time, and I think that's what we're, we're seeing today, maybe a bit of a, I don't think we've necessarily experienced it here yet, in as far as you know, the sales of EVs, it's still very much on the up here. Car sales in Australia year on year are huge, and adopting EVs slowed down in mainland Europe, and certainly the UK. And then there's, we still haven't quite got over the uncertainty of battery technology, its performance, its reliability, and how long batteries will last. So, there's still a bit of an unknown, about you know, how long's my EV going to last? Am I going to need a new $20,000 battery in 10 years time? So there's still uncertainty there.

Neil Martin  13:51 

People talk about fear of range, you know, how long is that battery going to last in terms of my journey? A step forward in the battery technology, would that be something that you could see accelerating that uptake as well.

Richard Hopkins  14:04

Yeah, 100 100% You know, ironically, are the phones we have today, I remember 20 years ago having a mobile phone, and the battery lasted weeks, and today only lasts a day. And we're just used to when we go to bed at night, we plug our phones in, it's just become muscle memory. I think there definitely needs to be a bit of a shift in technology rather than human behavior. I think that needs to happen. I think still we're used to being able to go to a petrol station, fill our cars, go and buy a Mars bar, and be back in our cars with under five minutes, and that's fairly easy and straightforward. So to expect people to sit there and charge for half an hour, three quarters an hour, even with fast charging, so I think that certainly needs to be addressed, and, the frequency by which we have to do that - but that will change. You know, battery technology efficiency in vehicles will change. Do we ultimately need a car with a range of 1000-1500 kilometers? Potentially not, not as long as the infrastructure supports it, and the technology supports it for fast charging or potentially battery swapping technology, where we can arrive at a once was a petrol station, and we just drop our battery that's now empty and swap it out, just like we do when we're changing our bottles for our barbecues. So if that technology came about and we could just do fast battery swaps, and it meets those, I think, as I said before, human behavior is very strong and very powerful, and it's a, it's a very difficult one to shift. So revolution, yes, however, it comes with some caveats, for sure.

Neil Martin  15:38

And by 2050 what would be your prediction in terms of the kind of percentage makeup of normal cars? Let's say, do you think the vast majority would be battery electric, or do you think the makeup would be mixed? How do you see that panning out?

Richard Hopkins  15:55

I think fossil fuels will certainly be dead, certainly 100% be dead, and quite possibly sooner than 2050. That doesn't necessarily mean the internal combustion engine will be dead, but burning fossil fuels will be dead. You know, the advancement certainly in biofuels now is massive, you know, Formula One is running 100% on biofuel now, and it's only a matter of time, in a relatively short period of time, I think, before that becomes a thing, so that's an instant win.

Neil Martin  16:28 

And maybe the benefit of those, if my understanding is correct, that that infrastructure that you talked about going into the garage, that would potentially still be the same if petrol was swapped out with biofuels, correct.

Richard Hopkins  16:41

Yeah, yeah, biofuels or hydrogen or an alternative like that. It's relatively straightforward to convert an existing internal combustion engine to combust ammonia or hydrogen. OEMs that are pursuing, and they, and they certainly are still developing, still researching, still innovating in the internal combustion engine space to switch to an alternative than fossil fuels isn't too, too challenging, really. And when I say OEM, I mean the original manufacturers of cars, the likes of Porsche and BMW and BYD.

Neil Martin  17:19

And going back to your analogy of VHS versus Betamax. Do you think one technology will win out and make the others redundant, or do you see that being different in terms of, you know, you might have 30% EVs, you might have 30% biofuels, and one particular fuel is not dominating.

Richard Hopkins  17:40

I think at the moment, when you, when you look at those two technologies, if you look at battery EV and you look at hydrogen fuel cell technology, they both have different kind of use cases, they're both good at different things. One's good for, let's just simplify it by saying batteries are good for around town and hydrogen is good for constant driving on motorways and stuff. So there could be a case where it's a, it's a consumer choice as to what best fits your, your situation, your lifestyle, or there could be the case where we blend the two. Imagine if we, if we blended VHS and Betamax and came up with something else, you know, whatever it might have been called, and had the best of both worlds, so that's also a possibility. Ironically, we mentioned Sunswift Racing at 91ɫ��Ƭ, and Sunswift 8, the latest car that's in production at the moment, due to be completed at the end of this year, is actually a combination, it's a tri-bred, so it is actually a combination of battery solar and hydrogen fuel cell technology, with the idea that the car has the smarts and the intelligence to understand what it's being used for at any moment in time. So if it is driving around town it may be just purely running on battery technology, and if it's driving to Melbourne, it might switch just to hydrogen. If it's cutting some laps around a race track, it might have everything switched on, so we're just exploring that as an option, you know, rather than sitting on the fence, kind of seeing how all of the technologies together might be a solution.

Neil Martin  19:16 

One of the other things that spoke about in terms of potentially that revolution, the fact of cars potentially driving themselves in future. Now, I think that is happening a little bit, especially in America. Yeah, I think there's six cities where Waymo robot taxis, I think they're called, are actually in operation and driving people around. Do you think that's inevitable, that by 2050 nobody's actually driving a car themselves?

Richard Hopkins  19:43

Yeah, that's that's been a bit of a slow burn, this one hasn't it? You know, 15-20 years ago, maybe we were all thinking that was going to happen the next day, and and there was the argument, you know, that always came about of, you know, if a self-driving car, autonomous vehicle was on the road and somebody was crossing the road, whether it was an old lady or somebody else, and they had to hit one. Who would it hit? There was that question. There's actually a lot more questions around the full introduction of autonomous vehicles, but you're right, it's happening. It's even happening here in Australia. You know, Australia quietly, a couple of months ago, with Tesla, launched assisted driving. So you can drive a Tesla, you have to still be behind the wheel, you have to still be conscious, you can't be asleep, but you can drive it autonomously. And people have driven from Sydney to Melbourne fully autonomously, albeit they have to sort of, you know, have their eyes on the road, these cameras, and if you take your eyes off the road, you know, the car, you know, tells you that you've got to take control, but that's happening here. But it also comes into the will we own cars going forward? And if we do have those autonomous vehicles that are ultimately efficient, kind to the environment. I'm not sure what the figures are, the numbers of roads, and the number of cars on the roads today, but it's obviously in the 10s, hundreds, billions of cars. Will we be able to just ultimately reduce those number of cars? And you and I share a car, we have an agreement that we share a car, and you know, we either drive to work together or, or, and then our car goes off and picks somebody else up, becomes a taxi day, creates us revenue. You know, we share the lease on this car, and we share, you know, it goes off and picks somebody else up, and you and I share the winnings from that. So you know it does open up a whole opportunity to change how we move mobility, just in general.

Neil Martin  21:37

You said, and I think rightly so, that self-driving cars has been a buzz for, you know, 20 years or so, and it's not yet here in the totality. Why do you think that is? And what then needs still needs to happen for those kind of things that you've just spoken about to become reality?

Richard Hopkins  21:56

Yeah, I think I started years ago. I've been going to sort of trade shows, car show, you know, mobility trade shows, and things, for for many years, it was almost like a switch being flipped. We were all talking about autonomous cars, and then, as we mentioned before, the government and everything around the world started encouraging electric ownership. So, I think those OEMs that probably had R&D departments that were working heavily on autonomous vehicles had to, because of government legislation, put all their eggs more so into the electrification basket, so that sort of got put on ice. That's that's my feeling, that's what it appeared to happen. And now it's sort of re-emerging again a little bit, certainly the likes of Tesla, and there's some other private sort of R&D houses that are doing a lot of research.

Neil Martin  22:45 

What do you think of their main challenges? Sensing seems to be one potentially that comes to my mind in terms of knowing the environment, being able to identify what's there on the road.

Richard Hopkins  22:56

Yeah.

Neil Martin  22:56

Maybe, maybe some AI thrown in there in terms of decision making that a human driver would normally do.

Richard Hopkins  23:02

Look, it's still new and emerging technology that still needs proving, and with many technologies we can be bold and introduce things, but in that sort of world, and when there's lives at stake, then obviously, and society still has some question marks around it. So I think we're still very early on, really. I know it's becoming quite prevalent in the US, certainly with the taxis, and it seems to be working, but there it has its limitations, the environment, the white lines on the roads, and how either the cameras or the lidars read the environment around them has to be absolutely spot on, and we do hear of issues. There are issues around it, so still lots of creases that need ironing out, but we will get there, you know. But once again, it comes down in some ways to the consumer, and whether the demand is there from the consumer. If people don't want to buy those cars, they won't buy them.

Neil Martin  23:58 

The cars themselves I mentioned at the start, they've largely not changed drastically in terms of they're just a vehicle for getting you from point A to point B. Do you see that changing? It seems to me that they're starting to become smarter and more interactive. How do you see that developing over the next 20 or 30 years?

Richard Hopkins  24:19

Yeah, look, I think we're again, if we're going back to sort of the ability to ride share and everything else. Look, cars did once upon a time used to be, I compare them to mobile phones. All right, in as far as years ago, we just used to have a home phone and it was used just to phone people, that's what it was there. It was a phone, and it's amazing that we call them mobile phones today, because they're not mobile phones, they're technology devices, and our smartphones today have almost once.. once I thought we're just going to get chips implanted, and we're not going to need these things, but we can't leave home without them, and if we're without them, the anxiety felt is just incredible, we're so dependent on them. And you know, from that early mobile phone, I think I got my first mobile phone in something like 1991 and Nokia 2110 and I was the bees knees. 

Neil Martin  25:12

You’re an early adopter.

Richard Hopkins  25:17

It was like it was like 50 pence a minute to make a call, or whatever it was, and then I remember when texting was introduced. My God, texting and eight different ring tones.

Neil Martin  25:28 

And snake!

Richard Hopkins  25:29

And snake. Gosh, oh my god, forgot about that. But now look at what these mobile devices are capable of. They are an integral part of our life, and we, in some ways, can't live without them, you know, arriving here today, you know. I parked the car around the corner, and I sort of forgot the instructions to get here, and I just pulled my phone up and pulled up the email, and there it was amazing. And cars potentially are experiencing that same transition from, you know, once upon a time they were just a Mark One escort, and we used to drive from A to B, drive to work, take the kids, whatever, whatever. And now the technology on board is once again introducing smart technology, and if we put that with autonomous technology as well. You know, I was thinking not that long ago, imagine if our windscreen was an 8k screen, and you know, yes, we could see through it, not dissimilar to the, you know, the Apple device that you wear, and you can use it as a screen, but also you can see through it, and you can still walk around. Imagine that, if that was the windscreen of your car, and you can see through it to drive if you want, or you can sit back and watch a movie.

Neil Martin  26:43

Or I guess augmented reality can come into that, and it can give you information 100% like the heads-up display on, you know, top of the range military helmets. 

Richard Hopkins  26:54

Yeah, look, Apple CarPlay, Android, it's all in our cars today. These technologies, they kind of don't necessarily creep up on us, but they just, you know, we say the cars are the same today, fundamentally, as they were 120 years ago. They kind of are, but I think if we actually look within them and how dependent we're becoming on the technology with those cars, it's a similar journey to these mobile devices.

Neil Martin  27:19 

And what else could a car be, or do? Do you think you mentioned maybe the electrification of cars? Does that give you an opportunity moving forward? Power sharing?

Richard Hopkins  27:31

Yeah, yeah, you know, we haven't really spoken about P-ONE technology, but a lot of areas that we're looking on is certainly vehicle-to-grid technology. You know, we mentioned before about the grid here in Australia, and how we need to support that grid. Australia is amazing. One in three homeowners have solar on their roofs and are already supporting either their own consumption or, in some ways, supporting the grid with that solar technology, and certainly, vehicle to grid is an amazing technology that is now available here. Legislation allows it. Unfortunately, one of the biggest problems is it's not necessarily supported by the OEMs, so there's a bit of a journey to be done there. But P-ONE Technology has come up with a product called V2G-Key, which allows you to discharge your car into your home, either for your own consumption or arbitrage back to the grid to support the grid. You know, if we're interested in home batteries to support, but we've got batteries on wheels, so why not utilise the battery we have. Charge your car either via solar or when energy cost is low and put it back when energy is high. So that's a great solution that puts cars into another use as an energy source for other things other than driving and vehicle to vehicle charging. So we're looking at, I don't know, if Samsung phones going back to the mobile phones where you used to be able to lay one phone on the other and share technology, but imagine if you lived in an apartment and I lived in a house, and I could charge at home, but you couldn't charge your car in your apartment, but we both work at 91ɫ��Ƭ, and we can arrive at 91ɫ��Ƭ. I can say I'm happy to leave work with 30% and you say I need to leave work with 30% but you only have 10, I give you some of my energy, and there's a little bit of a, you know, trade there that you know I can make a couple of quid off you, or once again, vehicle to grid, we can, we can make a bit of money by giving some energy back to the grid. So I think that's really quite an exciting space, how we can use our cars as energy providers and energy devices. It's that community sharing of energy, and cars can certainly all not just cars, fleets and trucks and buses can play a part in supporting our energy demands. So I think that's a definitely a place we're moving into, and P-ONE Technology is certainly excited about working in that space.

Neil Martin  30:03

Do you think there'll be a lot more communication to and from cars as well?

Richard Hopkins  30:08

We've started the journey there. I don't know if you use Waze or device, you know, software like that, that tells us where there's already sort of traffic congestion or where there's police or whatever, but that becomes quite centralised, but a lot of that is information provided by other users centrally. And then we get access to that, but V2X is extraordinary technology at Sunswift. We've used a bit of V2X technology.

Neil Martin  30:34 

And when you say V2X, for people who...

Richard Hopkins  30:38

Vehicle to anything, vehicle to anything, I think we can probably, there's probably a V to ABCD all the way through the alphabet. In all fairness, but X sort of more aligns itself with vehicle to anything, and V2V, vehicle to vehicle. I think certainly cars communicating without other cars, certainly in high congestion areas and accident areas, there's definitely the ability for cars to inform other cars. I foresee the situation where we can almost preempt accidents occurring and getting notification. I was driving on the M1 Mooney Mooney Bridge, I think it is, and I was coming down the hill there over the bridge, and it was on a Sunday afternoon, and whether it was a Spidey sense or something, I just knew that things were getting a bit hot here. There was some unusual movements of cars, and it, I sensed that there was going to be, and I turned around to my daughter and said, I think there's going to be an accident here, and I slowed down, and sure enough, there was. And I think you know, if you can imagine cars communicating with cars, and almost a car saying, 'You're driving like an idiot, slow down, behave yourself’, and having that sort of influence, certainly, in as far as road safety. Yes, certainly, as far as congestion, and you mentioned talking to traffic lights, and how traffic flow works. You know, we can centrally in this country, you know, control traffic lights. I was stuck at a traffic set of traffic lights just over Anzac Bridge a couple of months ago, and they were on red for ages. My daughter was like, "What's going on? The traffic lights are broken” and I go “ no, no, no, no... something, something's happened, and we're being held here”. And sure enough, Princess Anne drove past a couple of minutes later. So we kind of have that the ability, but if you can imagine how that could influence change, so there may be some issues, you know, your car talking to another car, do you want another car knowing what you're doing, so there's probably some societal sort of issues that we need to overcome.

Neil Martin  32:38

All these things run into privacy and...

Richard Hopkins  32:40

Privacy laws, and everything else, but yeah, we're working with some partners on some solutions.

Neil Martin  32:46 

I started off with some ancient history. Let's throw it massively into the future and go a bit left field. Will we ever have flying cars?

Richard Hopkins  32:55

Sorry, I thought you were talking about my Formula One career, being ancient history, history, but of course, you're talking about the Model T cup. That's an interesting one, isn't it? Gosh. it's been tried before, you know, it's not that it hasn't. Back in the 60s, 70s, you know, I think there was probably one in a James Bond film out of Q's garage, which was in the movies, but there's people talking about it now. I watched something not that long ago on YouTube, and somebody professing that they'd got a flying car company, but it was - they were manned drones, right? They weren't actually cars, and I think manned drones are helicopters, aren't they? We've kind of already had that, you know. So, look, the driving behavior on the roads of Sydney is absolutely shocking, and that's driving in two dimensions. Imagine driving in three dimensions, up and down and around the buildings. You know, we're on the sixth floor here. Imagine somebody driving past the window. I think that has some, that has some severe challenges. If you can imagine the licensing and everything else. I was a big fan of the Jetsons back in the day, right? I think we're a little way, let's keep our feet on the ground,

Neil Martin  34:09

But if autonomous vehicles became the norm and it's driving itself, does that then maybe open up a pathway, because, like you said, the humans are not involved and it's being controlled.

Richard Hopkins  34:22

Yeah, look at the end of the day, you know, the population of the world isn't decreasing, the number of cars being sold is increasing, the number of buses on the road is probably increasing. You know, there's a demand for humans to move around this planet of ours, and the current solution we have today isn't tenable. It'scnot sustainable going forward. So we need to find solutions that outweigh the solution we have today, and as you said, the solution we had 20 years ago isn't largely different to the one we have today. So if we want to make change, we're going to have to put our big boy pants on and make those changes. And yeah, we've got to do things that satisfy the world we're living in today, and the world we're going to be living in tomorrow. I never say never to anything. I think if you have that approach, we'd still be living in caves. Okay, so, so you know, I'm all up for flying cars, as long as I'm big part of it.

Neil Martin  35:17 

Well, we'll have to wait and see if I get a flying car in my lifetime, let alone the jet pack that I think I was promised in the 1984 Olympics. Professor of Practice Richard Hopkins, many thanks for joining me and sharing your thoughts and predictions.

Richard Hopkins  35:33

Absolute pleasure. Thanks, Neil. Thank you for having me here today.

Neil Martin  35:36

Unfortunately, that's all we've got time for right now. Thank you for listening. I've been Neil Martin, and I hope you'll join me again soon for the next episode of our Engineering the Future series. 

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