7 ms·

Just some rough estimates here, a Jetranger helicopter costs ~$1000/hr to charter. Assuming the helicopter's 300 kW engine was magically replaced with electric

Just some rough estimates here, a Jetranger helicopter costs ~$1000/hr to charter. Assuming the helicopter's 300 kW engine was magically replaced with electric batteries, that's only ~$30/hr for energy. And an eVTOL will be far more energy efficient in forward flight and at idle than a helicopter. So I could see a path to 10x improvement by eliminating the pilot and keeping utilization high. Even if you budget $100/hour maintenance cost, the cost can be far lower than conventional helicopters.

wmeredith 7y ago
Ah yes! Get to 10x cost improvement by eliminating the pilot. Perfect. This is called putting the bell on the cat. Or Belling the cat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belling_the_Cat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belling_the_Cat
- allovernow 7y ago
  To be fair, autonomous flight is probably an order of magnitude easier than autonomous driving. Particularly because it's far more predictable and you can put beacons on drones to automatically avoid collisions. The sky is mostly empty space and landing zones are clearly marked and purpose built. You don't have to worry about any pedestrians or unpredictable drivers or roads.
  - kaiabwpdjqn 7y ago
    The sky is mostly empty space when, and only when, there are not flying taxis at sufficient scale for society to bat an eye
    - allovernow 7y ago
      That's why I mentioned beacons for collision avoidance. They wouldn't be expensive. If we're about to build this industry from the ground up I would expect to see something like that done anyway.
  - zhoujianfu 7y ago
    Yeah, I don’t think we’ll ever have autonomous driving... mostly because we’ll have autonomous flying first and it’ll be way better!
    - gambiting 7y ago
      Flying is an order of magnitude worse than driving energy-wise. Even with electric motors it's still going to be a problem. Tesla travels for about 300Wh/mile, I doubt any flying machine would be within 10x of that.
  - rlpb 7y ago
    > You don't have to worry about any pedestrians or unpredictable drivers... Actually you do. Most airspace is uncontrolled, where the collision avoidance algorithm is "see and avoid". There are plenty of airspace users who do not broadcast any kind of beacon apart from being visible to other pilots. You could demand that they all wear electronic beacons. Such technologies do exist. However they aren't currently predicted to work well enough in the expected congestion created by large numbers of autonomous aircraft in the future. And it faces most of the same practical challenges as putting beacons on pedestrians and all other road users.
  - nradov 7y ago
    That is not fair. Autonomous flight is just as hard as autonomous driving due to the need to handle mechanical failures. If something breaks in the air you can't just pull over and stop. Current autopilots are generally unable to cope with failures and rely upon a qualified human pilot being ready to take back control within a few seconds.
- rstuart4133 7y ago
  No, it's not just eliminating the pilot, although yes electric making that easier is one aspect. An electric aircraft can have multiple engines (to wit: an octocopter) rather than just one a turbine that is a both high tolerance technological marvel and high maintenance. They don't need to long high speed blades whirring above to achieve VTOL, they can have small propellers in cowling's. They don't have to carry lots of highly flammable fuel that is highly likely to start a fire in suburbia ifthey become ubiquitous. With luck they will have solid state batteries. They don't need spinning wings under high stress, they can have passive wings that glide naturally. They don't need a big heavy engine to generate the power needed for takeoff, as powerful electric engines are powerful yet small, light and easily redirected without a gear train. A lot of things change. Admittedly some are way worse for electric, like flight endurance - and so it's no coincidence we are talking about taxi's here, not long haul fights. But when it comes to taxi's most things are improvements over ICE engines we have now. Thinking it is just about the presence or absence of a pilot is simplifying things way too much.
- onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
  Especially when the pilot is only 20% of the price!
taneq 7y ago
Fuel only makes up a small part of that $1000. The lion's share of the hourly charge goes towards paying off the amortised cost of buying and maintaining the helicopter itself. If you magically eliminated the costs for fuel and for the pilot, you're still probably paying $700+/hr. Source: https://www.aneclecticmind.com/2017/08/07/about-helicopter-fuel-consumption/ https://www.aneclecticmind.com/2017/08/07/about-helicopter-f...

wmeredith 7y ago

Ah yes! Get to 10x cost improvement by eliminating the pilot. Perfect. This is called putting the bell on the cat. Or Belling the cat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belling_the_Cat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belling_the_Cat

allovernow 7y ago
To be fair, autonomous flight is probably an order of magnitude easier than autonomous driving. Particularly because it's far more predictable and you can put beacons on drones to automatically avoid collisions. The sky is mostly empty space and landing zones are clearly marked and purpose built. You don't have to worry about any pedestrians or unpredictable drivers or roads.
- kaiabwpdjqn 7y ago
  The sky is mostly empty space when, and only when, there are not flying taxis at sufficient scale for society to bat an eye
  - allovernow 7y ago
    That's why I mentioned beacons for collision avoidance. They wouldn't be expensive. If we're about to build this industry from the ground up I would expect to see something like that done anyway.
- zhoujianfu 7y ago
  Yeah, I don’t think we’ll ever have autonomous driving... mostly because we’ll have autonomous flying first and it’ll be way better!
  - gambiting 7y ago
    Flying is an order of magnitude worse than driving energy-wise. Even with electric motors it's still going to be a problem. Tesla travels for about 300Wh/mile, I doubt any flying machine would be within 10x of that.
- rlpb 7y ago
  > You don't have to worry about any pedestrians or unpredictable drivers... Actually you do. Most airspace is uncontrolled, where the collision avoidance algorithm is "see and avoid". There are plenty of airspace users who do not broadcast any kind of beacon apart from being visible to other pilots. You could demand that they all wear electronic beacons. Such technologies do exist. However they aren't currently predicted to work well enough in the expected congestion created by large numbers of autonomous aircraft in the future. And it faces most of the same practical challenges as putting beacons on pedestrians and all other road users.
- nradov 7y ago
  That is not fair. Autonomous flight is just as hard as autonomous driving due to the need to handle mechanical failures. If something breaks in the air you can't just pull over and stop. Current autopilots are generally unable to cope with failures and rely upon a qualified human pilot being ready to take back control within a few seconds.
rstuart4133 7y ago
No, it's not just eliminating the pilot, although yes electric making that easier is one aspect. An electric aircraft can have multiple engines (to wit: an octocopter) rather than just one a turbine that is a both high tolerance technological marvel and high maintenance. They don't need to long high speed blades whirring above to achieve VTOL, they can have small propellers in cowling's. They don't have to carry lots of highly flammable fuel that is highly likely to start a fire in suburbia ifthey become ubiquitous. With luck they will have solid state batteries. They don't need spinning wings under high stress, they can have passive wings that glide naturally. They don't need a big heavy engine to generate the power needed for takeoff, as powerful electric engines are powerful yet small, light and easily redirected without a gear train. A lot of things change. Admittedly some are way worse for electric, like flight endurance - and so it's no coincidence we are talking about taxi's here, not long haul fights. But when it comes to taxi's most things are improvements over ICE engines we have now. Thinking it is just about the presence or absence of a pilot is simplifying things way too much.
onlyrealcuzzo 7y ago
Especially when the pilot is only 20% of the price!

taneq 7y ago

Fuel only makes up a small part of that $1000. The lion's share of the hourly charge goes towards paying off the amortised cost of buying and maintaining the helicopter itself. If you magically eliminated the costs for fuel and for the pilot, you're still probably paying $700+/hr. Source: https://www.aneclecticmind.com/2017/08/07/about-helicopter-fuel-consumption/ https://www.aneclecticmind.com/2017/08/07/about-helicopter-f...