11 ms·
Toyota invests $394m in Joby Aviation's flying taxis
- the_duke 7y agoThere are a lot of companies working on "flying taxis". All of those seem to have a large footprint with lots of rotors, meaning they will need dedicated landing/take off zones. This seems to limit their usability a lot, turning them more into a short range point to point helicopter service. Not to mention the noise pollution. Those things are all loud. Combine that with limited speed and range, and I just don't see the concept taking off in a big way. Some other competitors: * Volocopter: https://www.volocopter.com https://www.volocopter.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OazFiIhwAEs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OazFiIhwAEs * Hyunday S-A1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6K7GAG1Aas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6K7GAG1Aas * Bell Nexus: https://www.bellflight.com/products/bell-nexus https://www.bellflight.com/products/bell-nexus * Ehang: https://www.ehang.com/ehang184/index https://www.ehang.com/ehang184/index https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d66MoI4GdFs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d66MoI4GdFs * Kitty Hawk HeavySide (Larry Page pet project): https://kittyhawk.aero https://kittyhawk.aero https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7mc3C19kE4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7mc3C19kE4 * Lilium (branded as jet): https://lilium.com https://lilium.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qotuu8JjQM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qotuu8JjQM
- joshribakoff 7y agoFrom what I gather most companies in the space plan to land and take off from rooftops. That leaves a lot more options for stations and edges connecting them leading to a denser network than something like a subterranean train which requires dedicated stations with tunnels in between them
- OnlineGladiator 7y agoIn that case, what makes them more useful than helicopters?
- robotresearcher 7y agoThey aim to be much cheaper to run. Helicopters are mechanically complex so require a lot of maintenance, and have multiple single points of failure so you can’t skip the maintenance, and are demanding to learn to fly. The hourly rate of a helicopter is high. Electric motors are simple and reliable and all these companies use multiples so have some redundancy. Multi-rotors require computer control for stability. With that done the piloting is easy.
- OnlineGladiator 7y agoSure, they're trying to make it cheaper. But all of the eVTOL designs I've seen can't autorotate, making them much less safe (contrary to your implication about redundancy). Everything I've seen about this space is people with big checks trying to cut corners to enter a new market, and it seems ripe to fail much like the 737-MAX. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2019/12/01/inside-larry-pages-kitty-hawk-returned-deposits-battery-fires-boeing-cora/#24abc52558ab https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2019/12/01/insid... And that's ignoring all of the problems with the market itself, not to mention regulations, as well as logistical headaches of transporting between rooftops (which by the way, many cannot safely support landing pads - so now you also have to retrofit skyscrapers with incredibly expensive infrastructure). To be fair you answered my question and I'm just being belligerent, so thank you for the response.
- robotresearcher 7y agoThe argument is that you don’t need to autorotate if you can land under control on 2/3 of your 16 motors and the failure rate of each is epsilon.
- smattiso 7y agoThe likelihood of failure is much lower with an eVTOL than a conventional helicopter. Additionally a BRS chute could work with eVTOLs in a way it couldn't with a normal heli.
- 7y ago
- imposterr 7y agoThere's actually examples of this in the world now. In São Paulo, the rich take helicopters between buildings [1]. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/20/brazil https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jun/20/brazil
- mc32 7y agoEven so there are only 469 (in 2008 according to the article) in all of São Paulo and that’s the metro area with the most helicopters in the world. I doubt the likes of Hyundai are looking to sell their things “in the hundreds to thousands” range. It’d a a big change in air traffic and noise pollution.
- malandrew 7y agoYou'd be surprised how far 469 heliports go. That's one more than the number of stations the NY Metro has, which is the metro with the most number of stations in the world. Now imagine you could travel as the crow flies between any station in NYC. That's awesome efficiency, and if you still need you can grab an Uber at street level if you're still not close enough. You're also not limited to just those 469 heliports. The vertices of the convex hull they produce can all serve as jumping off points to go about a 100 miles further to heliports one may have in ones own home. For the rich in São Paulo, that may be homes in places like Angra do Reis and Laranjeiras. Even places like those two (which sit between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, can serve as connection points to jump from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro with only one or two stops in between the two cities. When you eliminate the time in traffic traffic to get to Congonhas or Guarulhos and the time spent in airport security, it makes a ton of sense for those with the means. Eventually as the tech progresses and becomes cheaper it will become accessible to more than just the very very rich.
- seoulmetro 7y agoNo. Seoul Metro has nearly double that of NYC. I have no idea how you could possibly think NYC has the most in the world. Just think of most Chinese cities, let alone Korea's capital. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul_Metropolitan_Subway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul_Metropolitan_Subway
- azinman2 7y agoExcept those rooftops are very expensive real estate, that often already have other stuff on them. So to rent one, you need to pay a bunch of money, which increases price per ride and decreases total rides... that combo means this isn’t that realistic for wide spread adoption.
- agumonkey 7y agodo these have clear benefits compared to choppers ? open question.
- freepor 7y agoThe people with the money for these have the political power to force others to deal with the noise. Already, helicopters have remarkably few restrictions. If you can afford one, you can fly it almost anywhere you want.
- pb7 7y agoHelicopters are so expensive to own and operate that the number of people that are even in the running to cause noise is low to begin with.
- freepor 7y agoExactly, people with that much money can lobby against any noise restrictions.
- duxup 7y agoI really don't see a pattern of any sort of large scale noise pollution via helicopter forced on people to think it will somehow be sure a thing.
- freepor 7y agoIt’s not large scale because it’s super expensive. You don’t have a problem with helicopter noise because they are almost no helicopters.
- squeakynick 7y agoHalf of these designs are simply scaled up drones which, according to simple physics and engineering, is the wrong direction. Details: http://datagenetics.com/blog/february62019/index.html http://datagenetics.com/blog/february62019/index.html How can organisations this large get it so wrong? When is someone going to tell them that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes?
- nomel 7y agoI think multi-rotor is a great safety feature, especially if they're partitioned into separate power systems. It would almost require intention to design something like the Volocopter without the ability to soft land in the case of an emergency. The link you provided mentions this in an odd way: > With a single engine helicopter you don’t have this redundancy. However, on engine failure, the single massive disk of the helicopter is an asset. ... Close to the ground, this stored kinetic energy can be traded, through pulling up the cyclic, to allow a safe landing. This is called autorotation, and is practiced by all helicopter pilots. The air taxi that succeeds, at any sort of scale, will not be meant or designed for skilled helicopter pilots pulling levers, at the right moment, as they speed towards the ground. They will be dumb, cheap to service, unskilled to fly, and have more than one point of failure.
- JohnJamesRambo 7y agoWheels are really awesome at fighting gravity when the engine dies so I’m not sure I ever see a time people are flying around in personal aircraft en masse. I’ve seen enough try to drive on the ground.
- awb 7y agoPlanes and drones are getting pretty good at autonomous flight. You might not need pilots by the time this tech is mature.
- dmitrygr 7y agoThey said the same about doctors, and yet heart surgery is done by real people. All your NNs are entirely completely utterly pointless when faced with inputs they have never been trained on. They always suck at extrapolating, and almost always suck at interpolating as well. So when an unexpected emergency happens, what exactly are they going to do? And outside of NNs, The only thing we have are autopilots. They sometimes fail, and that is why real pilots mainly just babysit them as their main job.
- godelski 7y agoJust an FYI, planes already regularly fly by themselves. Auto landing has even been around since the late 60's.
- nradov 7y agoYes but there are still trained human pilots monitoring the auto landing systems, ready to abort if anything goes wrong. It general autonomous systems are incapable of coping with unexpected failure modes.
- godelski 7y agoSorry, to be clear, planes are not level 5. But to also be clear, there are different levels of autonomy. I'm not trying to suggest they are level 5 though.
- jillesvangurp 7y agoRotor size matters a lot for noise and how far it carries. Compared to a helicopter these things are going to be a lot less noisy. Also there's a difference between landing/taking off and cruise. Several of these designs have wings and a vtol configuration. There's no shortage of roof tops, open areas, etc. that could be converted to land on. As soon as viable products hit the market they'll be very popular. Finally, cities are noisy places and it will be hard to hear them over the background noise. The reason this will take off (physically and economically) is cost. If you can travel 40-50m quickly for about the energy cost of a cup of coffee, it's going to be a game changer in big cities. I can take an Uber across town in Berlin but it will cost me around 20-30 euros and take 50 minutes (worse in rush hour) and is not that competitive with public transport. The same journey with a flying taxi could be done in 5-10 minutes (just like with a helicopter) the difference will be vastly lower cost. The main cost will be the pilot who can now do multiple journeys per hour and at least short term still charge a premium.
- thombat 7y ago> travel 40-50m quickly for about the energy cost of a cup of coffee By "energy cost" do you mean something like "the price of a cup of coffee spent on electricity"? That seems surprisingly efficient but maybe here (Europe) the coffee is cheaper and the electricity dearer - what's the figure in kWh?
- jillesvangurp 7y agoAround 20-40 kwh or so for a single journey assuming a maximum capacity of 100-150kwh and assuming it would be rare to use more than 20-30% of it on a single journey or fly the maximum range. At 5-10 cents per kwh (i.e. 20-40kwh/$) we're not even talking some fancy barista doing their thing. Grid prices can be higher of course but I'm assuming a bulk consumer of energy would invest in turning this in a fixed cost by e.g. installing solar panels & batteries to lower the cost. By the time these things start flying at scale, the coffee will be way more expensive than the energy cost. That's why most of these companies are investing in autonomous flight as well because short term that is going to be the cost bottleneck (that and training the army of pilots that they'd need).
- WhompingWindows 7y agoNoise may be a factor in certain locales with decent human-centered regulation against it, but: A) rich people have a ton of power, they will get it legalized if they really want to use them B) There are many sparsely populated areas where rich people would still be able to make this work...think rural islands of Japan or New Zealand, very mountainous areas, the outskirts of a major metropolitan area...I think these will find use in certain markets.
- ngoel36 7y agoThese are 100x quieter than a helicopter, and nearly inaudible overhead. All-electric range is 60 miles at 150mph, which covers the vast majority of popular and congested urban routes.
- srcmap 7y agoOne only see a few helicopters at time in typical city skyline. I wonder what happen if there are just 100 of them on the air at the same time.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- thelittleone 7y agoTrue. The sound of a single drone is enough to disrupt a nice quiet afternoon sky, imagine 100 multi rotor, large enough to carry multiple people. Like a swarm of giant mosquitoes constantly buzzing around.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hndamien 7y agoThis makes a lot of sense for Toyota. Their hydrogen fuel cells probably make a lot more sense in this context.
- ianai 7y agoHow would hydrogen make more sense?
- xingyzt 7y agoHydrogen fuel cells are much more energy-dense compared to Li-ion batteries.
- omegabravo 7y agoOn a simplistic level, the energy density of hydrogen is far greater than chemical batteries. Less weight to carry the same amount of energy. This is more complex than I summarised, containing hydrogen effectively being one issue.
- rhinokungfu 7y agoTrue, Hydrogen has a far higher energy density than li-ion batteries (~150x). But that doesn't show the entire picture. To store and use that hydrogen, you also need a very strong tank (cause of the high pressure it has to be stored in a vehicle) and a fuel cell stack to generate electrical energy. Taking the example of Toyota's Mirai, the hydrogen tank weighs 90kg to just store 5kg of Hydrogen (at 700bar). And this is despite being made of very expensive carbon fibre. If it was made of cheaper but heavier materials like steel, it would weigh much more. And the fuel cell in Mirai weighs 60kg just to output 114kw (155hp). Add all this up and it is a much more even (~2x, not ~150x) comparison with Li-ion battery (for reference Model 3 battery weighs 480kg). And given all this, not surprising the Mirai weighs (1850kg) more than a Model 3 long range (1725kg) despite having similar range and being far less powerful.
- hndamien 7y ago
- darkteflon 7y agoThis is pretty much everything you need to know about Toyota - everything you need to know about corporate Japan - wrapped up neatly in one anecdote. Toyota can’t make a plug-in electric car to save themselves but for white elephants like flying cars and smart cities they are all in.
- ianai 7y agoUh the Prius Prime and (later this year) RAV4 prime exist or will soon. What’s your point?
- umeshunni 7y agoNot OP, but I'm guessing their point is that Toyota has completely missed the boat on electrification where they had an early lead with the Prius. They went after shiny unrealistic options like Fuel Cells/Hydrogen and wasted their lead. The world would have looked very different now if they had invested in Electric 10 years ago. Their "plug-in" electrics have 20-40 miles of all electric range. Even Ford has vehicles with 200+ miles range. Instead, they still have only concept vehicles and their exec VP still says “We haven’t changed our policy towards battery EVs. We are not shifting our focus to prioritise battery EVs, nor are we abandoning our FCV strategy.” source: https://ww.electrek.co/2019/06/07/toyota-electric-car-images-accelerate-plan/# https://ww.electrek.co/2019/06/07/toyota-electric-car-images...
- the_duke 7y agoI find it very interesting how stubbornly Toyota is sticking to hydrogen/fuel cells. The rest of the market seems to have accepted that the big downsides of hydrogen based solutions (need for extensive transport + storage infrastructure, difficult containment, horrible end to end efficiency, ...) make batteries the better solution. Tesla seems bound to demonstrate that even semis are already viable with current technology, and battery research is bound to reduce price, weight and longevity further. We may find chemistries that rely less on materials like cobalt, nickel, copper. Is it pride and inability to accept failure, or are there valid reasons for this and Toyota could still emerge as a big winner? It seems unlikely to me for personal cars. Hydrogen seems better suited for energy storage, trains and airplanes.
- yellow_lead 7y ago> Joby says it will manufacture prototypes at a facility in Marina, California, near Monterey, but plans to tap Toyota’s famous manufacturing prowess to build “highly reliable complex hardware at increased scale,” said Paul Sciarra, Joby’s executive chairman and a co-founder of Pinterest. More glorified complexity. I would pay more to ride in something with highly reliable simple hardware.
- kgilpin 7y agoIf an aircraft can’t glide or autorotate then I don’t understand how it can be safe at low altitudes. Because whole plane parachutes (BRS) have a minimum altitude required to open successfully, and that altitude is a lot higher than anyone would care to drop. Airplanes have energy from their forward motion. Helicopters have energy in their rotor blades. This energy can be used to soften a crash landing. Without this available energy, and without a parachute, then how do you soften a crash and survive? People say that electric motors are so reliable... But batteries can spontaneously combust. I would like to know how these aircraft are safe enough to be treated the same as a taxi ride.
- rorykoehler 7y agoPerhaps we could borrow ideas from bicycle helmets and airbags to create an emergency mechanism which absorbs most of the impact?
- nradov 7y agoThe usual approach is to use a rocket to accelerate parachute deployment so that it's usable at lower altitudes. But even so there may be a "dead zone" in part of the flight envelope.
- ngoel36 7y agoThese are fixed wing, so they glide like airplanes. They will also have a BRS unlike helicopters. Additionally, the elctric rotors are independent, so there is built in redundancy. All of this results in a significantly safer aircraft.
- neonate 7y agohttp://archive.md/7LEjj http://archive.md/7LEjj
- rhacker 7y agoEvery $1 spent on noisy technology should require a $50 investment in tinnitus research.
- lasky 7y agoIs it just me or... Why do we need to have startup founders and car companies try their hand at building a new experimental electric helicopter to validate whether or not the market wants to use helicopters for ride hailing?
- growlist 7y agoAs others have said, building the physical vehicles is a crowded space to enter, whereas there seem to be far fewer ventures involving the enabling infastructure (e.g. 3D spacetime routing/scheduling, monitoring, ledgering).
- baybal2 7y agoThere are already commercial air taxis and helicopter services serving <300km market. Both are barely doing it financially. Now think how a technical solution grossly inferior to both helicopter and a prop plane will fare in the market.
- mhb 7y agoThey can carry five people 150 miles at up to 200 mph on a single charge? If that's accurate, isn't this a huge step forward for an electric vehicle?