Think forward. Speakers complicate aerodynamics, sound proofing, and add weight where you do not want weight. Cars are just drones that don’t know how to fly yet. We’ll all want to be wrapped in the most aerodynamic space and weight conscious vehicles possible, because it’s going to be a balance between comfort, range, and economics.

Weight is the only valid argument here, and even then you're talking a miniscule fraction of the total vehicle's weight. As long as crumple zones are mandated, there will always be room for speakers (think between the outer and inner panels of doors. Soundproofing is more for road/vehicle noise and will tend to be on the outer panel of any body section.

I couldn’t disagree more. Weight and space required for things like speakers complicate an engineer’s job, requiring compromises. Crumple zones require empty space to crumple. They don’t work properly if they smash a speaker into your kneecap. There are huge advantages to minimizing the space required by the most space wasteful components of vehicles, and speakers are obvious low hanging fruit

A speaker is an insignificant intrusion into a crumple zone and no engineer cares about a speaker going into your knee. Speakers themselves are already pretty thin to the point where if it's going to happen, you've got larger issues based on the fact that a 6.5" speaker is around 2.5" deep, held together by paper, and weighs around 2lb.

As for weight, these will save at most 35lbs (assuming a heavy set of speakers at 50lbs total and the fact that these are only 70% lighter) on a 2000-6000lb vehicle.

If anything, these would get put into flat panel TVs, but a car? There's too much dead space behind nearly every panel to justify it.

Finally, keep in mind, we've had flat panel speakers for decades, and this isn't the first article to proclaim their use in cars.

Like I needed to waste my time doing this.