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Cora – Kitty Hawk's prototype air taxi [video]
- pcnix 9y agoI'm very skeptical on the energy expenditure here, this does seem to be a fairly energy intensive mode of transport, but I assume the market would balance the price accordingly. It certainly doesn't seem like the sort of thing that would become a mainstream mode of transport without a big change in the energy market.
- Fricken 9y agoEnergy efficiency doesn't matter when it's electric. We don't have to worry about burning up the sun because we used it up too fast.
- FabHK 9y agoAccording to the 2016 Uber Elevate study, traditional cars achieve about 1 mile/kWh, electric cars about 3 mile/kWh, and electric planes about 2 mile/kWh. To simplify, one trades roll drag for induced (=lift generating) drag, at higher speeds. The bigger issues are battery performance (specific energy), and regulation, in my view.
- djsumdog 9y agoNew Zealand does have an absolutely insane amount of wind farms. Even if it's not energy efficient, if it's low emissions in that particular market just by the means of energy, it could be useful. That being said, energy there is insanely expensive due to asset sales; some of the highest cost in the world.
- aezell 9y agoAll I can think about is Clifford Simak's "City."
- monomyth 9y agoleave it to the dogs
- oliv__ 9y agoThat video is so cringy.
- sgt 9y agoThey've picked up a lot from Apple Keynotes.
- tonyedgecombe 9y agobut with added cheesiness.
- slowmotiony 9y agoWhat did you expect from a product called KittyHawk?
- samfriedman 9y agoI'm not sure I get why that name would imply cringiness: isn't it named for the Wright brothers' proving ground? Is there a reference I'm missing?
- dingo_bat 9y agoIt is like those kickstarter videos, except they have something other than fluff to show.
- thisisit 9y agoAnother discussion on KittyHawk here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16573676 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16573676
- harigov 9y agoAnyone know how much this costs per mile?
- iamgopal 9y agoLess than gas car.
- js3dev 9y agoKittyHawk is not an Alphabet startup. It is no affiliated with Alphabet. The title is misleading.
- ape4 9y agoAnother article on HN today says it has personal funding from Larry Page. ie not Alphabet.
- tantalor 9y agoSource for that: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-cofounder-larry-page-funding-owns-flying-car-companies-zee-aero-kitty-hawk-2016-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/google-cofounder-larry-page-f... "not clear how much"
- morinted 9y agoTitle should definitely be updated. Furthermore, as far as I can tell it should be "Kitty Hawk" not "KittyHawk" [https://kittyhawk.aero/ https://kittyhawk.aero/]
- rovr138 9y agoThe <title> has it as 'Kittyhawk' but the footer says 'Kitty Hawk' and the terms say 'Kitty Hawk Corporation'
- KKKKkkkk1 9y agoKudos to Ruth Porat for making sure that Google's founders use their personal money to fund personal side projects.
- jhall1468 9y agoWhat? They've funded side projects in addition to Google X doing there thing for many years. You think the CFO gets to tell the CEO what to do? She brought in meaningful changes (namely, not throwing money around like it's nothing). But trying to weirdly give her credit for this being a non-Alphabet company is... weird.
- ZeroGravitas 9y agoWhat's the long pointy bit that sticks out from the nose for?
- danielvf 9y agoIt is for measuring what the air is doing (speed/angle) before that air is affected by the aircraft. It is something that's almost every test aircraft has. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-planes#/media/File:Grumman-X29-InFlight.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_X-planes#/media/File:G... Once this data is gathered during the test program, the production aircraft can use less obvious sensors to measure what is going on.
- ezconnect 9y agoair speed sensor, need to be out of all the air turbulence to be accurate
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- anvandare 9y agoPitot tube, I think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitot_tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitot_tube
- clon 9y agoA single pitot probe it seems, so no triple redundancy? Also cannot spot any angle of attack sensors or anti icing measures (perhaps electric?). I hope it has a BRS at least.. There are a lot of things in aviation written it blood. A lot of work hours sunk into inspecting the swiss cheese from every angle, until the light does not shine through. Not the most welcoming ground for "disruption". Still, even the most modern autopilot will drop the controls to the pilot's lap almost routinely.
- FLUX-YOU 9y ago>Still, even the most modern autopilot will drop the controls to the pilot's lap almost routinely. And is likely why their "you won't need a license to ride, because it's automated" line is going to disappear once the FAA notices this.
- sandworm101 9y agoAnother flying car company. Many have tried. Before doing uber-air, first perfect the flying car as an aircraft. That hasnt happened. Then we can talk about the robot at the controls or the app that will summon it. Get all the air safety stuff done. Biuld a few thousand non-experimentals. Have people actually fly these things daily. Then worry about disrupting the car market.
- TheCoreh 9y agoTo be fair, this one looks significantly more production ready than all other attempts at a 'flying car' I've seen. It does seem like a compelling replacement for e.g. private jets or helicopters (and not specifically for cars yet)
- clon 9y agoI think it being autonomous is integral to it being a "success". Energy density is still a major limitation and doing away with the pilot can be one way to make the numbers work economy wise. A flesh and bone pilot will come at a substantial weight penalty, effectively reducing the utility of this 2 seater by half. As a licenced pilot myself, I am with you, however. Would not climb into this death trap as a self loading freight any time soon.
- mrybczyn 9y agoSeeing the rates of "single vehicle accidents" in small aircraft piloted by amateurs, I'm happier with the autonomy. Also, autonomy in the sky seems easier than autonomy on the ground. If Thrun is involved, chances are it will work pretty well...
- clon 9y ago> Also, autonomy in the sky seems easier than autonomy on the ground. This is debatable. A car has only 1 degree of freedom. An aircraft typically has 3 degrees of freedom. A car rests on solid ground. An aircraft is submerged in a fluid medium. A ground vehicle can adjust it's speed to the conditions, if necessary slow down if confidence levels get lower, or even go backwards. An aircraft is typically subject to an aerodynamic envelope. As for the sky being empty, take a look at this harrowing story of a biz jet encountering the wake turbulence of a A380. Airframe written off, crew earn their lifetime salary. Autopilot took 13 seconds to conk out. https://avherald.com/h?article=4a5e80f3 https://avherald.com/h?article=4a5e80f3 Turns out modern aircraft following airways to a precision of mere meters has increased such incidences. In the olden days pilots where often a bit off the track. To simulate this sloppiness in flying rigor, a thing called SLOP has been conceived, for Strategic Lateral Offset Procedures.
- iamgopal 9y agoFor those who are not aware, the kittyhawk is the place where wright brothers tested and developed their plane.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 9y agoKitty Hawk, NC - to be specific! It's why North Carolina license plates say "First in Flight."
- mannykannot 9y agoThey claim that it is quiet, but there is no audio to give any sense of that. I would want to hear two people having a conversation while it takes off nearby.
- wmeredith 9y agoZero chance this thing is anything a normal person would consider quiet. Moving enough air to generate the thrust it takes to transport humans is not quiet.
- mtgx 9y agoEven from the video, it doesn't sound too quiet to me, and I'm sure they tried to minimize how it sounds in the recording, or at least they seem to be cutting off the video quickly when there's some noise in the video. It may be 2-3x quieter than a helicopter, which I'm sure the engineers from the project would consider it a big innovation on its own, but that's not exactly what I would consider "quiet". But as I said in the other thread, I think this is a fine technology to have in the future, and I'm not too critical of it, like I would be if this was a hydrogen-powered air taxi for instance. It's battery powered, it's "self-flying", and the noise should improve in the long term, even though it will never be "quiet". I think there's little not too like about it. Range is not amazing, but for a first-gen fully battery-powered air taxi, it's not bad at all. They'll probably reach 5x as much by 2030.
- SlowBro 9y agoIt seems the vertical take off blades become dead weight and air resistance in horizontal flight. Could they auto-rotate instead, aiding lift? Similar to how an auto gyro works. The wings would be the primary lift providers but why not take advantage of the vertical blades as well?
- ape4 9y agoThe rotate mechanism would add weight and complexity.
- SlowBro 9y agoDisengaging the motors adds weight and complexity? Or would the props need to also be modified?
- mannykannot 9y agoThe key figure is the lift to drag ratio - as the lift needed is determined by the weight, then that divided by lift / drag gives you the thrust you need to keep flying. Autorotating small blades are not efficient lift generators, compared to fixed wings, which can have lift / drag ratios over 50 (though not on this machine.) Even partial lift from the rotors would reduce the overall lift / drag ratio. In addition, having the rotors generate lift would have an effect on the airflow over the wing, and probably be detrimental to its efficiency - it is bad enough that they are there at all, especially those in front of the wing.
- SlowBro 9y agoWould a classic helicopter rotor overhead be a better solution, paired with those classic wide horizontal wings? Lift with the rotor, then thrust with the rear prop, using both wing and auto rotating overhead rotor combined for maximum lift. Requires a tail rotor or similar. Perhaps the rear thrust motor or prop can be rotated sideways for takeoff? Now we’re getting complex, but not extraordinarily so. Ape4 noted would add weight and complexity. Any more than eight small electric motors and props do now?
- Quanttek 9y agoI must say I'm against this development. First of all, even if electric, this is certainly a very inefficient way of transportation that will 'waste' a lot of energy to transport maybe 4 people. The resulting price of this technology will result in the 99% stuck on the ground while the only te 1% can afford the fare. And even if it becomes a regular mode of transportation, do you really want these planes to fly over your apartment/house every few minutes? They might be more quiet than a Cessna but they wll certainly still be disturbing
- coldcode 9y agoI don't fear flying cars. I fear flying car crashes. Instead of a fender bender they "land" in your bedroom.
- jp555 9y agoEver heard of a ballistic parachute? Not a 100% solution of course, but then again zero customers died in all passenger aircraft flights last year. That’s saying a lot when every single day, there are times when there are over a million people simultaneously sitting in chairs in the sky
- 908087 9y ago> but then again zero customers died in all passenger aircraft flights last year. This isn't even remotely accurate. Also, even when a BRS deployment goes well, there's a good chance that the aircraft is coming through someone's roof if flying over a populated area.
- michrassena 9y agoI believe it was zero deaths on commercial jets last year, but when comparing that safety record to these smaller craft, it's a category error. Light planes are generally less safe than commercial jets per miles traveled.
- mrep 9y agoFive people just died in a NYC heliopter crash on sunday: https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/11/us/new-york-city-helicopter-accident/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/11/us/new-york-city-helicopter-a...
- davidgrenier 9y agoYou read the comments and you think everybody gets it, but then nobody gets it. Google must be too early.
- brunosutic 9y agoA lot of negative comments here. I must say I'm impressed and I applaud these people for building an innovative working thing and taking it to production. No pilot - mind blown. And sure, this might not be the solution to humanity's overall mobility, but heck I can see it being useful in many ways.
- throwaway1748 9y agoSadly negative comments are the norm here on hacker news. No matter how amazing the news, the top comment is usually a snarky takedown of the linked article. (It's nice to see the top comment on this one is actually positive!)
- syntaxing 9y agoI agree that the technology is exciting to see but I think there is a lot of negative comments because there is a lot skepticism (which engineers tend to be including myself due to the nature of our work). That being said, most commercial flights are actually on autopilot during cruise. Pilots can choose to use auto takeoff and landing as well but I believe it requires a specific license and copious amount of paperwork. Pilots are important because of liability and federal law.
- mrguyorama 9y ago>Pilots are important because of liability and federal law Pilots are important because if the autopilot gets even one little thing wrong it cannot recover and people die. Autopilot is more like "Auto-level and navigate" It is not designed for emergency situations. What kind of license will this vehicle require?
- godelski 9y agoAs a pilot and engineer, I think there are good reasons to be skeptical. Here's some of my questions. 1) Can it autorotate? Or in an emergency does it have to glide? 1.5) What's its glide distance? Cruising altitude? There's a lot of drag from those propellers so I imagine its best glide speed isn't great. 2) How are you going to get it in a city? Seems like you're going to have to go to the local GA airport (which are fairly frequent, but you'll still need a normal taxi). 3) There is a really limited range (100km or 60mi) and only goes 150kph (90mph) (I'm guessing max cruising speed, so real world you'll see it going slower, plus you have to consider TO and LND). That's not very far and not very fast. 4) GA is dangerous. How is it communicating with ATC? Can ATC divert it? Will it integrate into the standards (N1234 fly one niner zero). What happens when someone doesn't use the standard (this WILL happen)? So can it fly in class B airspace? I even have questions about class C and D. And how is it going to handle GA aircraft? And if it is in class G how does it deal with that person that isn't using the radio? Does the computer know when its own radio isn't working? And does it know ATC light signals? 5) Who is doing the inspection? In GA we check everything before we fly. Sure you can automate fuel levels, oil, etc. But how are you checking things like propeller or airframe cracks? And is it doing runups? How often? 6) Is it VFR? IFR? What altitude is it flying at? How does it handle cross wind? Which is going to be a big pain if you are flying in cities. And as to why pilots not only choose, but are required (in the US), to do TO and LND is because that's BY FAR the most dangerous part. I can even tell you I'm thinking a lot more during TO. As a pilot you're constantly thinking about what you're going to do if there is an engine failure. During TO you're under 1000ft and the runway is behind you (you can't turn around). LND, well at least you got the runway ahead of you. Cruising? You got plenty of time to figure out where you're going to go. Pilots aren't just required because liability and federal law, they are required because automation isn't there yet. I can tell you that it is hard to see aircraft in flight. Especially in conditions like sunrises and sunsets. Many accidents happen on clear and sunny days. There's a lot of things I like about it, but there is legitimately a lot of reason for concern. But it is a prototype after all.
- NicoJuicy 9y agoI think it's perfect for transportation. A share model could really exist with it, less infrastructure. If it becomes popular, entire cities could change how they look ( roof = taxi, roads for bicycles and deliveries on the roof)
- justin66 9y agoInteresting that they'd release this video the same day a helicopter crash featured prominently in the news.
- justin66 9y agoDoes anyone think it was a good PR move? This is one of those deals where I'm actually curious about the reaction here.
- peterchau 9y agoI love it. Can’t wait to see the first batch of production reviews from customers. Also on energy usage: Why does it matter how much electrical energy it uses? We know how to harness a near infinite amount.
- moomin 9y agoBecause it claims to be green, and you'd need a green way to harness that amount on demand.
- pjc50 9y ago> Why does it matter how much electrical energy it uses? We know how to harness a near infinite amount. This is a silly thing to say while there's still quite so much CO2 being emitted from electricity production.
- nl 9y agoI suspect the OP means solar and wind. It’s a fair point given that these have batteries, and could easily swap them out for precharged ones.
- JohnJamesRambo 9y agoCare to share this infinite energy idea?
- naibafo 9y ago> No traffic lights ? only as long as there are just a few flying around. Once there are some with crossing routes you will need air traffic city rules as well. I am really interested to see how that would pan out.
- bfuller 9y agoSurely you've seen footage of swarms of autonomous drones flying around. They definitely will not need traffic lights.
- marcosdumay 9y agoYou don't need traffic lights on a 3D space. Air traffic rules are very different.
- mannykannot 9y agoWhen your airplane is stacked in a holding pattern, waiting for clearance to land, it is essentially at a red light. If you and everyone else going to the same place are in electric airplanes, there is the potential for some real range anxiety.
- nl 9y agoFinally the 21st century gives us flying cars, and all that happens is people complain about it. HackerNews indeed.
- nharada 9y ago"We know almost nothing about the vehicle, price, performance, or details, but as someone who has never worked with aircraft or lived in New Zealand let me tell you why this is the worst idea I've ever heard and why the people building it are dumb idiots."
- decacorn 9y agoTHIS ISNT A FLYING CAR, ITS A VTOL AIRCRAFT. a damn plane with rotors on the wings. its easily 3x or 4x the dimensional footprint of a car for gods sake.
- danielvf 9y agoContrary to almost every comment here so far, this is both innovative and energy efficient. Let's talk energy efficiency first. Once it's up in the air, it's has a similar profile to a normal single engine airplane. A Cirrus SR22 can go 1,200 miles on 80 gallons of gas. That's roughly speaking 15 miles per gallon - better than many pickup trucks or large SUVs. And that's while going 180 mph. Slower is more fuel efficient. This aircraft is definitely going to make noise on takeoff and landing, but it's not going to make much noise while cruising. The Dodecacopter/regular aircraft hybrid solves a lot of problems. Once it is in cruise mode, it is as safe as a regular small aircraft. Importantly, unlike a quadcopter, it does not crash immediately on loss of engine power - it can glide to a landing somewhere, or use a parachute, or land with its Dodecacopter rotors. Unlike a rotor craft, this aircraft is very energy efficient while cruising. The Dodecacopter side lets it take off and land in even more places than a helicopter. It looks like it has redundancy for any two rotors/motors to go out. If this happens on takeoff, you fly to an airport to land. If this happens on landing, you leave the aircraft on the ground until someone comes and fixes you. You skip all the transmission and cyclic complexity of a helicopter. This is going to cost a whole lot less to maintain than a helicopter. In short, this has potential to be way better than either a helicopter or a small airplane. Even ignoring the air-taxi business, there's a market for this aircraft. So let's flip to the business side. An easy target for making these at scale would be $500,000 per aircraft. (Might be able to half that, but lets be conservative). Operating costs at scale, max $100/hr, could be one quarter that. On the revenue side, this would replace a two hour trip across a city in traffic with a fifteen minute flight. Unless you've flow small aircraft before it's hard to appreciate just how much faster it is not to use roads. There's definitely going to be some market for this - that's worth money.
- soVeryTired 9y ago> On the revenue side, this would replace a two hour trip across a city in traffic with a fifteen minute flight. If a city takes two hours to cross in traffic, that's a clear sign it needs a subway or monorail.
- manmal 9y agoWhich both cost billions over billions, and you will not achieve that good connection for the majority of citizens with just one line.
- javiramos 9y agoMy understanding is that a larger, slower turning propeller is more efficient than a smaller, faster propeller. If so, why do drone companies/small aircraft companies have been pushing the more and smaller propellers model? Better aircraft control? Optimizing for range and battery life doesn’t seem like a bad idea.
- mtgx 9y agoMost likely because of better control for drones. For this air taxi it may have more to do with noise.
- danielvf 9y agoSo there are two ways to control a rotor craft. You can adjust the angles of individual blades, changing this angle multiple times each rotor sweep, as helicopters do. This is expensive, complex, things wear out, and a safety risk for the aircraft. Or you can do what quadcopters do, direct drive the rotor and just adjust the speed of the entire rotor. This gets rid of both the Swashplate system and a transmission. It's lightweight, simple, and cheap. The problem is that it doesn't scale well to bigger rotors. When a rotor gets too big, it has enough inertia that you can't speed it up and slow it down fast enough to control your aircraft. Also, as you get bigger, you want a slower spinning rotor, and current electric motors aren't happy direct driving at that slower speed. If you want to use the simple system, you have to use small rotors for now.
- javiramos 9y agoMakes sense. Thanks for the explanation!
- evgen 9y agoOne additional point that is worth making regarding this rotational inertia in the blades is that this is what makes auto-rotation possible. In an engine-out situation a helicopter has a lot of energy stored in these blades and by conserving this as much as possible while 'falling' the pilot can pull up on the cyclic when close to the ground to trade the energy for enough lift to survive the crash. A direct-drive drone propeller cannot auto-rotate, and if for some reason it has an in-flight emergency that interrupts electrical power to the VTOL rotors it will plummet like a brick. I am not sure about the glide characteristics of those wings, but with all of the drag from the non-operative drone rotors I am guessing it would be somewhere between 'awful' and 'lawn-dart'.
- fouc 9y agoI had to check it's not April 1st. Especially after watching the youtube video. I'm still skeptical that it won't turn out to be an april fools prank.
- ju-st 9y agoI'm developing a paranoia that the Alphabet moonshot projects are just PR to obfuscate the data privacy issues of Google's advertising.
- ransom1538 9y agoSmall planes have had parachutes for quite some time [1] now and have saved many lives. Why on earth would this company put people up into the air unmanned without one? [Personally, if a parachute was onboard I wouldn't mind jumping into one.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQyrPVIIQdE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQyrPVIIQdE
- lallysingh 9y agoAFAIK it's basically just Cirrus that has a parachute system (CAPS in their case). Others don't, and there are plenty of other plane manufacturers with many, many planes in the air.
- dingaling 9y agoCirrus were a pioneer in factory-fitting but other types, even microlights, are also fitted with recovery systems. Magnum is a common brand in Europe. BRS who make the CAPS for Cirrus also provide retrofit kits for Cessna 172 and 182.
- willglynn 9y ago> [Personally, if a parachute was onboard I wouldn't mind jumping into one.] The cabin opens in a clamshell fashion and that appears to be the only way in or out. Opening the canopy mid-flight would probably result in shearing it off once it catches even a small amount of air. From there, you're left with exit point that's ahead of the wing, ahead of the main propeller, and ahead of the rather wide tail section. Maybe you'd be clear if you hugged the bottom of the door and kind of… rolled underneath at exit? As a skydiver who's exited all sorts of planes in all sorts of ways, I would rather take my chances landing with that plane. -- Edit: on further review, I believe you mean "if the aircraft were equipped with CAPS, I wouldn't mind flying in one" as opposed to "if the aircraft came with a bail-out rig, I wouldn't mind strapping it on". Nevermind :-)
- danielvf 9y agoThe Cirrus has a whole aircraft parachute - you can see it used here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J94sGh8fQN8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J94sGh8fQN8
- zeesh 9y agoFirstly, I commend them for getting the vision started more than anyone else I’ve seen. It’s a V1 commercial product and they seem to have the resources to iterate. That being said, it’s not a very aesthetic craft. Sadly, they didn’t figure out how not to have wings. It’s like they took a Cessna/Piper and threw on 6 electric motors on each wing and a big battery pack and called it a flying car. Their former hovercraft product was much cooler!
- ansible 9y agoFrom an aircraft design perspective, it is an interesting choice. I can't help think that this design, with dedicated lift engines is just not very mass efficient. The pylons and the twelve motors also add a lot of drag in horizontal flight, even though they've taken steps to reduce it. As of today, if I was designing an air taxi from scratch, I'd go with a tail-sitting VTOL, like the E-flite X-VERT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFXibbgNix8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFXibbgNix8 For a full-sized aircraft, since you can't vary rotor speed very quickly for large motors, you'd need to add variable pitch propellers. The passengers would sit in a pod which rotates to keep them level during all flight modes. And, as other commenters have mentioned, a ballisticly-deployed parachute for safety. And maybe emergency landing skids for a horizontal landing if needed. I know that electric flight is part of the selling point of this design, but I'd still prefer to use fossil fuel for the energy density. I'd love to try it out if it goes into production!
- syntaxing 9y agoCan anyone chime in how this aircraft is so energy efficient? It seems like the props on the wing will give a ridiculous amount of drag. Also, one of the key requirements for an energy efficient rear prop plane is super laminar air going to through the rear prop for efficient thrust. The wing design seems to remove this advantage. Edit: Also, I thought smaller props for vertical flight is significantly less efficient than one large prop like a helicopter? That being said, I always had a soft spot for aircraft startup after working at one in my younger days. Pretty interesting to see how this ends up especially with Sebastian Thrun on the team.
- assblaster 9y agoI don't know for sure, but I think that autorotation of the multiple vertical rotors provide substantial lift even if they're not being actively driven, similar to the tree seeds that autorotate as they fall.
- Someone1234 9y agoAuto rotation converts air speed (i.e. drag) into lift. That may slightly reduce the relative costs of drag (by providing benefit) but it still has to be overcome by forward momentum.
- fastball 9y agoBut that's probably more of an issue for max speed than it is for efficiency, which would explain why it's operating speed is only 150kmph.
- syntaxing 9y agoI wonder if the auto-rotation is enough to overcome the drag from the huge wake they produce. The wake has to be almost the size of the aircraft with the wings oriented as so.
- mnw21cam 9y agoIf you look carefully during the video, you can see that while in forward flight the rotors are aligned and locked in a forward position, which presumably reduces drag a fair amount. But yes, I can still imagine them producing a lot of drag.
- Kequc 9y agoI don't like that they're touting no emissions. Electricity has to be generated and in the US that's mainly coal. Hybrid vehicles are closer to having it right where running the car charges it and you can get by burning significantly less fuel. Strictly electrical has not been shown to be an energy saver or a flag bearer of emissions reduction. In many cases so far it has been a cause of more pollution than modern engines using oil.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago> Electricity has to be generated and in the US that's mainly coal. Huh? Coal is only 30% of the USA’s energy production, natural gas is higher at 34%. https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electricity_in_the_united_states https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=electrici... The other points in your post are equally dubious, do you have sources?
- Kequc 9y agoWikipedia lists energy consumption being 70% coal, I'm not sure why the large discrepancy there. I got my information about electrical engines from a website trying to talk up how great it was that we were moving away from oil based engines, but even there they admitted that until more power generation is switched over to renewable that emissions are higher with electric cars. Which makes perfect sense and is not dubious, the fewer times you need to convert energy the less energy wasted. Electricity does not store well, additionally.
- sjs382 9y ago> Wikipedia lists energy consumption being 70% coal, I'm not sure why the large discrepancy there. Link? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Ge...
- Kequc 9y agoYeah that'd be the link it's the first image on the page.
- outside2344 9y agoThis will be great for millionaire 1% Googlers to fly to work from Monterey.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- eecsninja 9y agoFinally we are getting flying cars instead of 140 characters.
- nascar_is_bad 9y agosolutions for the .01%
- shortoncash 9y agoIt always starts with them before it trickles down to the rest of us. Let's hope they use it and beta test it for us.
- nascar_is_bad 9y agoNah, let's hope one of them gets an itch to become public transportation's savior.
- decacorn 9y agoit isnt sexy enough and wont make them any return. completely agree with you. its a total waste of resources. never gonna happen
- FidelCashflow 9y agoAm I the only one who finds it endlessly annoying to refer to anything that's primarily (or exclusively) powered by a battery as "green" or "emissions free" or "pollution free" or anything else? What about the energy to manufacture, ship, assemble, design, test (or clean up when it fails), etc. That all takes energy and most of that energy probably comes from coal or some other environmental nightmare resource.
- Anderkent 9y ago>That all takes energy and most of that energy probably comes from coal or some other environmental nightmare resource. Maybe, but it's easier to replace centralised pollution from something like a coal electricity plant, than decentralised pollution of every appliance generating it's own power. A battery appliance doesn't care if the electricity that coms to it is from a hydroplant, a nuclear facility, or coal. It's decoupled from the source, and so allows you to improve things iteratively.
- phil248 9y agoAll manufactured goods needs to be produced, and that production invariably requires energy and raw materials. There is no alternative method of production that requires no energy or resources. Instead, the distinction is made between things that cannot be used without creating harmful emissions (ICE for example) and things that can be used without creating those emissions (like battery power). But you are correct that it takes energy to "manufacture, ship, assemble, design, test" etc. This is true for literally everything, from pencils to houses to flying cars, and it always has been.
- akhilcacharya 9y agoWhat's the utility of using electric motors over turboprops, etc? Is it just the simplicity factor?
- nopinsight 9y agoOnce this becomes practical with regulations worked out, there will likely be more people who choose to live in Napa Valley, Stockton, or Sacramento and commute to San Francisco or Palo Alto. Real estate prices in those places might be affected a bit. The same with New Jersey and Manhattan. What are some other areas that this might be the case? Once the direction becomes clearer, perhaps someone should start an REIT with a focus on arbitraging transportation revolution.
- peterwwillis 9y agoI just gave a talk on flying cars. It turns out technical difficulty is not the reason we don't have flying cars, or self-driving cars. Innovation is one way new technologies can change the world. For example, the reason we have skyscrapers is due to the elevator brake. Elevators have existed in some form or another for over 2,000 years. But without the modern innovation of the elevator brake, nobody felt safe being hoisted by a rope up into the air, where a fall could kill you. And nobody looked forward to walking dozens of flights of stairs. A new combination of a spring, gravity, and a ratchet-and-pawl (all existing for over 2,000 years, the same as the elevator itself) gave humans the feeling of safely moving up and down in space that they didn't have before. But innovation is not a guarantee of success. Electric cars have existed for 190 years. Their innovation, combined with the development of modern batteries, made them the most popular car by the beginning of the 20th century. But two decades later they disappeared, when cheaper, more convenient, more useful gas cars became available. It took another 60 years to develop a new production EV. In comparison to land-based vehicles, drones are used to fly automated GPS-coordinated routes around the world every day. There are about 31.7 Million airplane flights over the USA every year. And even though 37,000 people die in car crashes every year, only 399 people died in air crashes in 2017 (world wide!). Not only are flying vehicles clearly safer than driving, we can very reliably coordinate flying vehicles. So why don't we have automated flying cars? Nobody decided to build them. Until startups like this one do the actual hard, long-term, complicated work to coordinate all the necessary pieces, and can figure out how to make it both convenient and cost-effective, it just doesn't happen. And the same is true of self-driving cars. Until someone decides to coordinate all the complicated parts to get it working, it doesn't exist. Sometimes this takes convincing society to make compromises - like, you don't get the "freedom" of piloting your own vehicle, unless you are very very well trained to do so. And sometimes it just takes lots of elbow grease. Personally, I think we need more of the former than the latter. But I'm glad this company is taking on both challenges.
- iamgopal 9y agoWhat unless ? This is fun. I understand most of the engineering is in regression, but still making things that fly is fun. Only problem is money.
- msie 9y agoUmmm, are there flight corridors defined for low flying aircraft? You can't just fly in a straight line everywhere. You can't just fly over a densely populated area and how do you avoid crashing into other flying taxis?
- orliesaurus 9y agoHoly sheep, new zealand looks beautiful