A few points worth contending.

First, personal flying vehicles are definitely not going to be a common mode of transportation. If and when this happens, it will be for ultra rich, select few people, effectively replacing a private helicopter. We don't have the infrastructure, regulation or technology to have millions of people buzzing around in their astro-ford like the fifth element - this is still very much science fiction.

Second, scooters and bikes need infrastructure, which in 99.99% of the US, is not made for this. In fact, current infrastructure is very much hostile to bicycles and scooters, so in order for this to work, there's going to have to be a massive investment in new infrastructure all over the US. Is this very likely? I wouldn't say so.

The US locked itself into using cars through massive, expensive infrastructure and culture and I don't see this changing easily.

The population growth slowing might be true, but it's still growing, and there's still a profit to be made there.

The new factories are going to replace manufacturing in foreign countries. I'm not sure the effects on supply will be drastic. It's just a matter of building cars domestically, avoiding tariffs and securing domestic pipelines.

Finally, asking these corporations to "look 20 years ahead" instead of maximizing short term profits, is a common tradeoff that they are all aware of. Currently, short term gains is what's being preferred in almost every industry. I doubt any board members will vote to leave money on the table for long term benefits. More money now always wins.

> First, personal flying vehicles are definitely not going to be a common mode of transportation. If and when this happens, it will be for ultra rich, select few people, effectively replacing a private helicopter.

I wonder what it would be like for most cars to be replaced with flying cars (i.e. helicopters). I think the noise alone would be a huge issue. Helicopters can be heard from extremely far away and are quite noisy. If you multiply that by like 1 million in a metropolis, I think that would approach unbearable, specially at nighttime, etc.. Also I don't think noise can be reduced too much, including electric propulsion. Propeller engineering would give you some reduction but still I think too much for near universal usage.

But I think the main thing is just cost. Electric aircraft like that would really be just too expensive for everyone to have em. Not everyone can afford a good old (electric) automobile today.

There's also battery technology needing a significant improvement.

Regulation and infrastructure is comparatively solvable I think.

Amazon had approximately zero net profits for 20 years or so. It was a meme not too long ago--how much longer will investors keep pouring money into Amazon before either they stop or Amazon starts reaping a bounty they had been sowing for decades.

But everybody seemed to believe Amazon was building an insurmountable, monopoly-like position. That never happened. Then AWS came out of nowhere and that's when their profits finally took off, and investors won their bet, but in an unpredicted way.

The problem with the car industry is that, excepting Tesla for 5-10 years, nobody believes there are outsized profits to be made, and other than Musk (once upon a time), nobody with the personality to convince them otherwise. Though Amazon didn't need a personality; everyone just sort of assumed Bezos was an evil business genius biding time.

> We don't have the infrastructure, regulation or technology to have millions of people buzzing around in their astro-ford like the fifth element - this is still very much science fiction.

If by flying cars you mean flying robotaxies, then all you need are landing pads. They can be easily accomodated on top of buildings. And regulation for what? We already know how to fky helicopters by autopilot, no need for innovation stiffling with more regulation.

The automobile itself was initially nothing more than a toy for the rich and powerful.