4 ms·
I'm glad you make this comparison because it leads directly to my point about why flight (in these forms) is infeasible as a broad consumer commute technology.
by iaw 10y ago
I'm glad you make this comparison because it leads directly to my point about why flight (in these forms) is infeasible as a broad consumer commute technology.
In 1950 a car cost ~$1.5K in the US, GDP per capita was ~9.6K. So it was around 0.16 of GDP per Capita to purchase a new car.
In 2016 GDP per capita had risen to $53k with a new car costing between 17K and 33K depending on how you look at it. This is 0.32 to 0.62 of GDP. More, but not horrible.
A Cessna costs $160K, a 3x factor compared to GDP. So for around the price of a house (or down-payment) you can own a depreciating mechanical liability that enables you to commute marginally faster...
The economics aren't there.
- FabHK 10y agoTrue, economics aren't there. Question is whether that's because of unsurmountable physical limitations, or because of current engineering and current regulations. And that is not obvious. For what it's worth, I don't really see personal aviation take off anytime soon anywhere near as much as personal driving has - but some niches might become feasible with personal electronic VTOL aircraft (PEVA).
- Robotbeat 10y agoThere are about 2000 Cessnas produced every year, globally. If you only produced about 2000 cars per year, they'd cost on the order of $160,000 as well. The key is to produce tens of thousands of them (and more standardized than the Cessnas) so you can get mass production to work. And anyway, even if it cost that much, it's still a viable route for commuting using a rideshare service like Uber if you have 3-4 people sharing the same vehicle and you're shaving off 2 hours of commuting each day (500 hours extra per year at $30/hour gives you $15,000 extra per year PER PERSON).