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There 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 landi

• joshribakoff 7y ago
  From 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 ago
    In that case, what makes them more useful than helicopters?
    • robotresearcher 7y ago
      They 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 ago
        Sure, 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 ago
          The 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 ago
          The 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.
          • OnlineGladiator 7y ago
            > The likelihood of failure is much lower with an eVTOL than a conventional helicopter. You're basing this on a myriad of assumptions as eVTOL designs are barely at the prototype stage right now. Helicopters have been in use for decades, so we know how safe they are. If they truly prove to be safer then that's awesome, but based on everything I've seen I don't believe that to be true.
            • smattiso 7y ago
    • ngoel36 7y ago
      They are all-electric, 100x quieter, notably safer, and significantly cheaper by the mile.
  • imposterr 7y ago
    There'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 ago
      Even 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 ago
        You'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 ago
          No. 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 ago
    Except 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 ago
    do these have clear benefits compared to choppers ? open question.
• freepor 7y ago
  The 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 ago
    Helicopters 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 ago
      Exactly, people with that much money can lobby against any noise restrictions.
  • duxup 7y ago
    I 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 ago
      It’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 ago
  Half 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 ago
    I 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.
    • jotm 7y ago
      > pulling levers, at the right moment, as they speed towards the ground I think this could be automated?
      • nomel 7y ago
        Sure [1], but safety through redundancy is much easier than automation. 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLIo8jO9VUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLIo8jO9VUU
• JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
  Wheels 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 ago
    Planes and drones are getting pretty good at autonomous flight. You might not need pilots by the time this tech is mature.
    • dmitrygr 7y ago
      They 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 ago
        Just an FYI, planes already regularly fly by themselves. Auto landing has even been around since the late 60's.
        • nradov 7y ago
          Yes 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 ago
            Sorry, 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 ago
  Rotor 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 ago
      Around 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 ago
  Noise 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 ago
  These 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.