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Larry Page’s startups working on flying cars
- amelius 10y ago> “Self-flying aircraft is so much easier than what the auto companies are trying to do with self-driving cars” I guess until everybody starts using them :)
- tudorw 10y agoI think they are getting at the 3 dimensions available and a lot less fixed and unpredictable 'vehicles', including people... Hopefully they'll standardise things, or maybe we'll end up with Apple airspace that users pay to fly in and lower down in the smog some 'open access' space...
- BurningFrog 10y agoBecause there is no terrain to worry about.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoThere are broadcast towers with wires that are certainly worth worrying about if not accounted for in advance.
- bobsil1 10y agoDistributed electric propulsion is promising, check out the NASA papers.
- amelius 10y agoBy the way, their job openings are all for B.S. and M.S. level (no Ph.D.), which seems a bit odd.
- rubidium 10y agoAs a PhD, I think this makes sense. My guess is Paige want's people designing and building the car largely with existing tech. Not spending 10-15 years innovating new ways to fly. It's a coarse filter, but probably aimed at that effect.
- ForgotMyUName 10y agoMaybe they need people who do work every day, not just think, talk, or write about doing work.
- daveguy 10y agoOuch.
- mtgx 10y agoI'm sure this is something Elon Musk would be trying to make, too, because there's a lot of expertise that his companies already have to build something like this: autonomous tech, rocket engineers, batteries, electric powertrains, solar panels, and he has already said he would probably build an electric airplane next. If only he had the money to experiment with something like this. That's why I'm hoping that Apple buys Tesla eventually and makes Musk its CEO and lets him do whatever he wants with those $150+ billion (maybe $300 billion by then) cash reserves. And apparently he's already toying with flying stuff: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/740723195431538689 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/740723195431538689
- thomasahle 10y agoApple still has to produce a product larger than a TV. Currently they seem very far and very different from Tesla.
- kiba 10y agoElon Musk never does something just because. There has to be compelling reasons why flying cars are the future.
- drb311 10y agoFunny how many tweeters are explaining Musk's joke back to him.
- outworlder 10y ago> I'm sure this is something Elon Musk would be trying to make I am not so sure. An electric airplane at least has the effect of lowering greenhouse emissions, thus increasing, even by a minuscule amount, the amount of time we have on this rock. But flying cars? This is something that would increase the world's energy consumption, for little benefit. He has already tackled transportation with the Hyperloop. Those are flying cars(or trains, depending on your point of view). Only they are safer, more energy efficient and more economical. Besides, adding wings to a car doesn't seem like something one would do, if trying to think from first principles. Also, I think the flying suit was a joke (my inner child is hoping not).
- Bromskloss 10y ago> Self-flying Meh. That would be taking the fun out of it, taking away the very point.
- hugs 10y agoYou can keep flying with manual controls because it's fun. I'll fly in a self-flying car because I need to get somewhere fast and I'm not a pilot.
- yk 10y agoI think that autonomous vehicles make flying cars possible. On one hand, learning to fly is difficult (the problem has a dimension more than driving on the surface) and people really do not like wreckage falling from the sky. So one needs a highly trained expert to pilot any flying vehicle, or a fully autonomous autopilot. The second thing is energy, a plane needs to handle a lot more energy than a car, simply because it flies, so it is more expensive. If someone own a flying car, then they are investing a lot into a capability they use very rarely. With a Uber like model of shared transportation one orders a car only when one needs it. And it makes sense to have a flying car in the pool, even at a hundred times the cost of a regular vehicle. So each individual customer will use that flying car almost never, but there are many, and the ones who pay a $100 to shave five minutes of their time are probably in that moment very happy, that they have that option.
- Retric 10y agoFlight takes less energy than you might think. The real issue is landing in city's. You need virticle takeoff and landing which creates a lot of issues.
- rjsw 10y agoPeople are working on planes that can land vertically under computer control. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning...
- rando444 10y agoYou might be interested in this http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/08/481286099/drone-taxis-nevada-to-allow-testing-of-passenger-drone http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/08/481286099/...
- mc32 10y agoSo, I think there is a difference between a plane which can also function as a car on streets and cars which can take flight but mostly stay on the ground. The former can be lighter the latter would be heavier, using current materials. Primarily planes vs primarily cars.
- joakleaf 10y agoRelated is this one-man drone by a Chinese company which should being test flights in Nevada: http://www.ehang.com/news/146.html "Drone" because the on board computer handles all the flying (just pick a destination).
- 0xFFC 10y agoI am so curious about how this Ehang 146 thing will pan out. If it does really work, I think it is one of the best idea I have ever seen !
- marvin 10y agoWhen we do eventually get working personal VTOL vehicles (let's call them something that is not not flying car), they will look something like this. Maybe with different characteristics for body shape and rotor arrangement, but definitely with gimbaled electric motors and with no wings or control surfaces.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoAnd hopefully one that won't have any issue with 8 rotating blades coming into contact with wildlife or squishy humans.
- rtpg 10y agoWhat problems do flying cars solve? I know it looks cool but is there some huge thing that would get solved with this?
- vintermann 10y agoThey can probably go in a straighter line to wherever they're headed.
- eumoria 10y agoAlso being able to add layers atop one another as traffic increases.
- adwf 10y agoThere are a number of potential issues they solve: 1) Efficiency. A flying car can theoretically take a straight line to its destination instead of having to follow a complex road layout. It might be less efficient to fly per minute, but if you're flying less minutes, it could be a net gain. 2) Reduce congestion. How much fuel in a car is burnt in traffic? With flying cars, congestion will largely be a thing of the past, you have effectively unlimited road just by changing altitude. 3) Reduce urban sprawl. You can get rid of a lot of the roads that plaster the countryside. There will still need to be some obviously. But less. 4) Reduce national infrastructure costs. As above, you get rid of the roads, you don't need to maintain them anymore. 5) Convenience. You don't need a driveway or garage on your house when you can land on the roof ;) All in all there are quite a few decent reasons for it. Just depends on whether you can beat that efficiency level. It would be interesting to see if anyone has done calculations factoring in the cost savings from reducing sprawl and the miles of road that are maintained each year.
- dekhn 10y agoThe efficiency argument doesn't work: moving up against gravity will always be more expensive.
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- Nokinside 10y agoHelicopters and small planes already exist. We might have autonomous helicopters and small planes in the future, but flying car concept is flawed and not because it's hard to build one. - Preflight checks and flight safety. Larry should first build normal small aircraft that can do without constant manual checks before flight. This is actually good subgoal to work with even without flying cars in mind. Reliable infrastructure that checks and calibrates instruments so reliably that you don't need manual checks would be revolution in aerospace. Just walking from your car into your future Cessna-Android and flying off would be sci-fi for aviators. - Energy consumption. No matter how energy efficient the engines are, hovering and short takeoffs use lots of energy. Flying with small wings with little lift is equivalent to driving monster trucks in full power. You don't want flying becoming everyday phenomenon until we have abundance of carbon free energy. - Noise and safety regulations, aviation regulations over urban areas. Flying cars are not happening in the suburbs or anyone where lots of people live. In the meantime try to get new helicopter landing sites approved in your neighborhood. If you have to take car to your flying car hangar, just have a small plane instead. Or walk to a buss station.
- sievebrain 10y agoYour first point makes sense, but if the flying cars are fully electric then I'm not sure how much of the work to make existing small aircraft totally reliable would be applicable to such a different machine. I guess that leads on to the question of, why not start by making an electric self-maintaining self-flying Cessna?
- Nokinside 10y agoEnergy density of jet fuel and gasoline is something like 45-46 MJ/kg. All rechargeable lithium-whatever batteries have less than MJ/kg. Turboprops are efficient and reliable. They have good power-to-weight ratio. Currently electric motors are good only for things like gliders that need relatively little power.
- prplhaz4 10y agoThis link (recently on HN) provides an interesting analysis of the options: http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/how-i-designed-a-practical-electric-plane-for-nasa http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/how-i-designed-a... It seems like a fuel cell could be a viable option in the not-too-distant future, but still comes with a good number of trade-offs...
- mawburn 10y ago>We noticed that you're using an ad blocker, which may adversely affect the performance and content on Bloomberg.com. For the best experience, please whitelist the site. Yeah, ok Bloomberg.
- BooneJS 10y agoHeh, I guess a page loading faster could be an adverse affect, depending on perspective.
- Cthulhu_ 10y agoPerformance as in ad performance as in impressions as in money. for them. Their performance, not yours.
- mtgx 10y agoKind of how Android is "open" to OEMs, not you.
- lallysingh 10y agoIs reflashing your phone so hard?
- Spoom 10y agoIt is if the bootloader is locked.
- mashlol 10y agoI'm on mobile, not using an ad blocker, and I still got this message... really Bloomberg...? Also by performance being affected perhaps they are referring to the 5 extra secondtheys make you wait.
- tgb 10y agoSame here. And of course the ads themselves bog down the page so that it's hard to read even after their popup.
- nxzero 10y agoMuch like autonomous cars, feel the focus is on the tech instead of how the tech would impact culture. Core issue is that flying spreads people out, and given how hyper connected people are, this makes no sense. Real focus should on condensed living areas, not flying people around, which is a massive waste of energy.
- rl3 10y agoEvery time I see an article on flying cars, I can't help but be reminded of an old IBM commercial[0] from 2000. Deliciously ironic considering it represented the fact that mainstream culture had all but written off the idea entirely. [0] https://youtube.com/watch?v=vzm6pvHPSGo https://youtube.com/watch?v=vzm6pvHPSGo
- MalcolmPF 10y agoThe Sisko is of... IBM?
- boulos 10y agoMore disappointingly, we still can't just walk out of a store with goods and have it charge us. That said, the idea of all the products having RF things on them would be ultra creepy, so I'm guessing that's the limiting factor.
- kuschku 10y agoWell, in some stores, RFID on all products already exists. Especially as they were originally added to prevent theft, and are now kinda for free, it’s quite cheap to add that feature.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago“We were promised flying cars, and instead what we got was 140 characters” Silicon valley tries to create the future
- skykooler 10y agoKind of odd how, with all the little schematics of flying cars on that page, Terrafugia is nowhere to be found.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoTheir new design, the TF-X, is the first schematic...
- skykooler 10y agowhoops, missed that.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoAs long as there's the FAA involved, flying cars are a stupid idea. They are shitty cars if they're any good at being airplanes, and they're underperforming and over-priced airplanes just because they can somewhat function as a car. Now, if Larry Page's flying car company is also lobbying to gut the FAA's ability to regulate his creation, that's a whole other can of worms. I don't think personal flight devices are a bad idea, which is why I'm working on my own. Flying cars are so contradictory in construction and purpose that I can't help but get really peeved at any praise directed toward the endeavor. There are more factors than simply "can this 4 wheeler get airborne" to keep at top of mind. Good luck getting a reasonably priced AME to keep the thing airborne. >But better materials, autonomous navigation systems, and other technical advances have convinced a growing body of smart, wealthy, and apparently serious people that within the next few years we’ll have a self-flying car that takes off and lands vertically—at least a small, electric, mostly autonomous commuter plane. The latter half of that sentence is plausible. Flying cars are not. Sorry.
- BurningFrog 10y agoFlying cars would be a product for the world market. The FAA only controls a small part of that airspace.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoMaybe the .001% of people in the world market, and even then, of those people, approximately a much smaller amount would be capable of flying such a vehicle properly. They might be financially able to purchase, but will they be competent enough not to crash it within the first month? I seem to recall Dodge Vipers being notorious for being crashed within the first week of ownership due to lack of proper training (which was subsequently provided in advance of delivery IIRC). We're talking airplanes here. Obviously the FAA doesn't control global airspace, as evidenced by a Malaysia Air passenger jet flying over an active combat zone and being shot out of the sky by a SAM. Sometimes the FAA does good work. Sometimes not, but it's definitely the foremost "authority" in aviation.
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- JDDunn9 10y agoI just emailed the people at Moller this week asking them what the biggest challenge in making a flying car was. Their reply was: Thanks for reaching out to Moller International. Your question is a good one, with a multitude of answers. For now, I’ll explain 3 of the biggest factors. First, there is a lot of FAA and government regulations regarding aircraft. Airworthiness certification is a lengthy process, and depending on the level at which a company wishes to test, operate, and potential sell their aircraft, the process can take anywhere from a few months to a few years. Second, as stated previously, time is a major factor not only for development, but also testing, marketing, etc. In aviation, there are no “unimportant” parts at 10,000 ft. Safety is always a top priority throughout the entire process. Third, and finally, funding. Companies like Moller International depend greatly on their investors and supporters to keep the lights on. Until there is a product being sold, and cash being brought in regularly, a company must depend on some other source of funding. Aircraft programs are not known to be easy and cheap; these programs are some of the more expensive ones out there, especially in the private sector. With all of this said, all of us here at Moller International are working hard to ensure the latter two have as minimal an impact as possible. We have been working in cooperation with the FAA to get things going as quickly and safely as possible. Let me know if you have any other questions.
- jacquesm 10y agoAnd of course the #1 reason: developing an economical, practical flying car is very hard within the constraints set by physics.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoWell even if it works the #2 reason is you have to have a qualified person to fly it. One quick glance between US Driving Regulations and Tests versus FAA Pilot Certification programs reveals the two are very divergent. I've yet to see an IFR-conditions capable car. Not saying it isn't possible, but just spitballing the technical and competency thresholds here.
- antoniuschan99 10y ago
- programminggeek 10y agoI noticed this a while ago, that flying cars will only become real when self driving tech is progressed far enough that you have self-flying cars. Interesting to see that as a real project.
- andys627 10y agoWe'll all be happier and healthier and have more money for other stuff if we build our cities around walking, biking, and shared transit. Suburbs = unhealthy, inefficient, unhappy (it has been studied - look it up don't just comment reply "I love the suburbs and my driving my Model X everywhere").
- louthy 10y ago> look it up don't just comment reply "I love the suburbs and my driving my Model X everywhere Instead of this passive aggressive remark, perhaps post links to the research that you believe validates your point? I'm not disagreeing with you, but I bet it's probably possible to find "studies" that back up both sides of the argument.
- andys627 10y agoApologies - wasn't meant to be passive aggressive. Thanks for suggestion. Here're some more resources: - Commuting linked to stress, bad health, no friends - Urban low income live longer: http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/04/when-youre-poor-where-you-live-determines-how-long-youll-live/477687/ http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/04/when-youre-poor-where... - Commute linked to divorce: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/13/divorce-study_n_3751641.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/13/divorce-study_n_375... - Commute linked to poor health: https://www.google.com/search?q=commute+linked+to+poor+health https://www.google.com/search?q=commute+linked+to+poor+healt...
- alphapapa 10y agoI contend that people are happier and healthier where the population density is lower, resulting in less crime, less pollution, less noise, lower cost of living, more space, more privacy, etc. If you want to live in big buildings, packed together like sardines, unable to escape from the noise of your neighbors and everything that goes on in the city outside the window, more power to you. But don't presume to say that everyone else will be happier if they would just do what you prefer.
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- eblanshey 10y agoIt's great seeing a strong push toward aviation as a superior method of transportation. One of the side effects will be people gradual spreading out, away from huge city congestion, which is largely set up due to our transportation. It will enable us to live more in tune with nature, while not giving up the conveniences of having everything we need within short distance. I touched upon this in a blog post: https://medium.com/@eblanshey/the-world-is-undergoing-massive-change-and-ive-never-been-so-excited-in-my-life-cca5666827f0#.bst1jq2ox https://medium.com/@eblanshey/the-world-is-undergoing-massiv...
- zieski 10y agoWhat if what we need is frequent in person interaction with other people? Spreading out further and further, eating up arable land with exurban homes, putting more distance between ourselves and others. It seems unhealthy for us and the "nature" you want to be in tune with. "Across the study period, 66 595 youths died by suicide, and rural suicide rates were nearly double those of urban areas for both males (19.93 and 10.31 per 100 000, respectively) and females (4.40 and 2.39 per 100 000, respectively)." http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2195006 http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=21950...
- douglance 10y agoVR solves that.
- twinkletwinkle 10y agoHow deliciously dystopian.
- eblanshey 10y ago> What if what we need is frequent in person interaction with other people? I don't see how it would be any different from living in suburban area (what many would consider the perfect middle ground between the city and rural areas). Most people for at least 5 minutes to get to where they want to go. Flying (in the future at least) can be no different. I didn't say that cars are going to disappear anyway. You can still live close to your friends and get to each other via car/bike/golf cart/atv/whatever. I think you missed my point. The idea is that living the rural life will give you the same experience at a suburban one, and I'd argue, similar to the urban one. Most people still walk 15+ minutes to work in the city. 15 minutes of flying will get you much farther, to a multitude more possible destinations.
- googletazer 10y agoIt almost has to be a vertical lift/land shuttle type of thing to work. I don't see it being able to land in cities any other way. Very cool though, freedom in a whole other dimension.
- ape4 10y agoIf the (ground) car enabled urban sprawl... just think what the flying car would do for it.
- Animats 10y agoThis is encouraging. There's no fundamental problem with building a "flying car"; all sorts of strange VTOL craft were built in the 1950s. Many of them ended up in the Hiller Aviation Museum on 101 in San Carlos, CA. The main problems with VTOL are stability, engine cost, and fuel consumption/range. Pure-thrust lift requires enormous power. Most of the successful pure-thrust VTOLs are jet fighters, which are mostly engine. The Harrier and the F-35 are examples. Jet engines are expensive, and they don't get much cheaper below 6-passenger bizjet size. This is why general aviation still uses props. A lot of effort has gone into cheaper jet engines, but without much success. (Yes, there are large model aircraft jet engines, which is what the Flyboard Air uses. They're good for a few hundred hours, not the 10,000 hours between overhauls of aviation jet engines.) Electric VTOL is going to be interesting. There are lots of electric drones, after all. Engine power to weight is good. Siemens has a water-cooled electric aircraft engine in test. Battery energy density sucks. NASA is talking about aircraft where there's a gas turbine or two driving a generator, with lots of electric props. This could work out. Meanwhile, until the battery situation improves, you can build short-ranged flying cars. There's a cute little one out of China, apparently intended to get China's rich and powerful around Beijing's traffic jams.
- shmerl 10y agoWhat about hoverboards?
- marvin 10y agoThis thread has the potential to become hilariously cringeworthy in a decade or so. I'll be checking back in five years to see if lightweight VTOL aircraft are still an idea that is "obviously stupid because we've tried it before and it didn't work". My guess is that the progress in batteries and electric motors will have made this concept a lot more feasible by then. At some point it will be a completely obvious idea which will make us shake our heads at the skepticism it had before.
- 6stringmerc 10y agoNo, they do work just fine with Jet-A. Are they practical? No. Will electric battery technology overcome the constraints within 5 years? That's a viable hypothesis, sure.
- uncoder0 10y agoI don't think battery technology could overcome the specific energy constraints in 5 years... Seems highly unlikely. Jet-A is 46 MJ/kg - Lithium Air ~40MJ/kg - Lithium Ion is 0.85MJ/kg Lithium Air is the only thing remotely feasible that 'functions' in a laboratory and it has not left the lab since 1970. "Another recent review on Li-O2 batteries, authored by materials scientists from Technion- Israel Institute of Technology (Balaish, Kraytsberg et al. 2014), concludes with : 'The possibility of buying off the shelf Li–air batteries within 10–20 years does not seem realistic at the moment.'"
- marvin 10y agoIt wouldn't be an entirely apples-to-apples comparison to jet fuel. A fully-electric VTOL aircraft would ditch most of the wings, for instance, and instead make the fuselage lifting-body. Wings are large to provide enough lift at takeoff and landing speeds, tail and rudders to provide aerodynamic stability which would be provided by electric motors instead. Also, the engines would be lighter and a significant fraction of the empty weight would be batteries. We wouldn't see an electric drop-in replacement for a long-distance airliner in the near future, no one is claiming that.
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- thesimpsons1022 10y agoam I the only one that doesn't want flying cars? I want to be able to look up and see the sky, not traffic. I don't want drunk drivers ramming into buildings. I don't want to have to build a horizontal wall over my backyard for privacy. what benefit do they even have? I'd rather just have fast ground transportation
- mattm 10y agoI think they would have to be self-flying cars to make it feasible.
- thesimpsons1022 10y agomaybe this is cynical but I can imagine a steady stream of litter raining from the sky's as people toss trash out their windows
- oftenwrong 10y agoI'd rather just have slow ground transportation that's practical. Walking is a human's natural mode of transportation, yet so many modern cities are built in a way that makes walking useless. Allowing all to live within walking distance of stores, work, and friends would be a greater achievement than a society built on the flying car. "The paradox of transportation in the late 20th Century is that while it became possible to travel to the moon, it also became impossible, in many cases, to walk across the street."
- pascalxus 10y agoTaking to the air is a Great idea! It won't be limited by transportation infrastructure. And you don't have to place the stations along a 2 dimensional arc as with train stations. You can have any point to any point directional travel. I forsee a future where people call uber like air travel at their nearest heliport. I'm really glad someone is working on this!
- jdhawk 10y agoI wish these guys would focus on new small turbofans, like the Williams EJ22. Pairing one of those to something like a Cirrus/Piper/Mooney airframe would give fast, low fuel, reliable powerplant for existing airframes. Add in a sprinkling of new technology to simplify the flight controls and you'd be a lot closer than trying to boil the ocean with "flying cars"
- dmritard96 10y agoSurprised most articles haven't mentioned the flying car at CES: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/chinese-flying-car-maker-granted-clearance-takeoff-simon-montford?trk=hp-feed-article-title-publish https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/chinese-flying-car-maker-gran...
- dave2000 10y agoWhat would the authorities do to prevent these things, if they existed, from being loaded with explosives and driven into buildings? Even if the idea got off the ground and anyone (who could afford one) could start flying around, how many terrorist attacks would it take before they were outlawed? Do you think, having taken out the white house, the government would stand behind civilians rights to own and fly them? They'd not only ban them, they're probably restrict private use of drones and planes too.
- aurizon 10y agoI remember the pulp Science Fiction magazines of the 30's, 40's and 50's. Quite often they had drawn pictures of cities with hundreds of planes going every which way. For a while it was autogyros, helicopters etc. It never happened. Cars won. A car is supported by the road with zero energy cost except for motion. Any aircraft must waste energy at all times, and the highest energy use is when standing still(hovering). Ok so they have 100,000 planes flying around LA at 200 miles per hour. Managing that number of planes under automatic computer control is a huge technical challenge. Human pilots = impossible. Until we have anti g and can hover for zero energy it will never happen.
- johngalt 10y agoI've always thought a flying motorcycle makes more sense than a flying car. The power to weight ratios are closer, as are the engine requirements. Something like a long two seater cabin motorcycle with wings that attach like glider wings. Something like this with wings: https://peraves.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/roger_susan_monotracer_dsc_7255.jpg https://peraves.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/roger_susan_mono... Flys like a motorglider. I.e. slow for a plane but faster than a car/bike. Very efficient per mile (for a plane). Tolerates engine failure with a good glide ratio. Ground to air transitions happen at designated places (mini airports). Wings are left at the airport while you operate the bike in ground mode. Or towed in a narrow trailer just like a glider trailer.