4 ms·

Electric aircraft for shorter trips instead of trains. The battery energy density still needs to improve somewhat but that is happening. They’d allow for servi

Electric aircraft for shorter trips instead of trains. The battery energy density still needs to improve somewhat but that is happening. They’d allow for serving more direct (point to point) routes than trains as the infrastructure cost is so much lower than laying and maintaining tracks. Rail serving high volume routes still makes sense, especially while electric plans remain relatively small.

SahAssar 6y ago
I might be wrong but this seems like a very US-centric idea. For most of the developed world trains fill this need very well, while the US has had problems with their rail network for reasons partially based on geography, partially based on population density, and partially based on their own fault. I think this explains it pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbEfzuCLoAQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbEfzuCLoAQ The solution is not aircraft, the solution is more and better trains. Or perhaps autonomous buses/trucks depending on how far out you look.
- wtracy 6y ago
  IDK, high-speed rail doesn't seem to be taking off outside of Europe and a handful of Asian countries. That leaves most of Asia outside India/China/Korea/Japan, and pretty much all of Australia/Oceania, Africa, the Middle East, and the entire New World. I would love to see high-speed rail take over the world, but there's a lot of sparsely-populated places out there, and it makes sense to investigate technologies to support them.
  - SahAssar 6y ago
    Sparsely-populated places are the cheapest places to build rail, both because of land prices and also the cost of labour. I think that for any volume of passengers over shorter distances that would be large enough to mandate a regular airway it would be cheaper to build high-speed rail. At least over the long term the economics of scale should take over and besides that a rail network is more useful for shipping of goods than a airport would be. In the US it'd require similar effort/cost as the Interstate Highway System did, but would probably yield equal economic benefit.
    - psadri 6y ago
      The problem is that train routes are fixed So it only makes sense to connect regions with high populations. Aircraft can go anywhere, including places with small populations.
      - SahAssar 6y ago
        Sure, they could, but they don't. Aircraft require airports, ATC, large land areas for landing/takeoff and so on. In general aircraft for passenger or cargo routes take a few routes and don't shift much.
- projectileboy 6y ago
  Tough to say how the pandemic will affect this, but EasyJet and the like were absolutely changing the game in Europe up to this spring for medium-length trips. Flying from Nice to Rome is way faster and way cheaper than any of the train options.
- barnabee 6y ago
  I'm not from the US, and I think this is valid basically anywhere, although the lack of rail infrastructure in the states makes this perhaps particularly appealing. The basic logic is two-fold: First, it's much faster, cheaper, and less contentious to create new routes, and capacity can quickly be switched (even seasonally or in response to events) thanks to neither needing to pay for nor lay tracks. Secondly, it shortens a lot of journeys. Even in countries with pretty extensive rail infrastructure it is common to combine two or more trips via "hub" cities in order to complete a journey. This adds time because you travel further and have to change trains and wait around. The difference could be particularly extreme given that only longer distance intercity trains tend to be high speed, and electric planes will eventually be faster even than high speed rail. A similar change happened with long haul air travel: as twin engine planes have been able to fly further over water due to safety improvements, the traiditional hub model has lost out as many more point-to-point international routes were created. While I think they might re-shape regional transport in some pretty important ways, electric planes won't replace high speed rail (and kerosene burning jets) on more popular routes, at least not for a while (and perhaps, debatably, never). Trains are incredibly efficient and hard to beat when you need to regularly move a lot of people, and electric aircraft, while they're about to become useful, are going to remain relatively small and range limited for quite a while.
- muzani 6y ago
  I thought it would be more appealing in cities with horrid traffic jams like Jakarta. Public transport exists, but can never be as good as it could be in a place without city planning. We've had staff from there work remote, because commuting to the office would take half a day (one-way). We've literally flown them to an office in another country to get access to the hardware they were working on because it was easier than getting into the main office.
supernova87a 6y ago
> The battery energy density still needs to improve somewhat but that is happening. "Somewhat"? The energy density needs to get better by a factor of like, an order of magnitude to be competitive. And it's still going to require human pilots for at least 10 years even aside from that.
mulcahey 6y ago
Elon’s been thinking about this a lot apparently. https://youtu.be/RyS92KPQnjk https://youtu.be/RyS92KPQnjk
muzani 6y ago
Sounds like "flying motorcycle". Just find a way to go from work to the office, without all the turns, speed bumps and traffic. A friend's company did a prototype of this and it was quite good, but all the negative publicity demotivated them.

SahAssar 6y ago

I might be wrong but this seems like a very US-centric idea. For most of the developed world trains fill this need very well, while the US has had problems with their rail network for reasons partially based on geography, partially based on population density, and partially based on their own fault. I think this explains it pretty well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbEfzuCLoAQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbEfzuCLoAQ The solution is not aircraft, the solution is more and better trains. Or perhaps autonomous buses/trucks depending on how far out you look.

wtracy 6y ago
IDK, high-speed rail doesn't seem to be taking off outside of Europe and a handful of Asian countries. That leaves most of Asia outside India/China/Korea/Japan, and pretty much all of Australia/Oceania, Africa, the Middle East, and the entire New World. I would love to see high-speed rail take over the world, but there's a lot of sparsely-populated places out there, and it makes sense to investigate technologies to support them.
- SahAssar 6y ago
  Sparsely-populated places are the cheapest places to build rail, both because of land prices and also the cost of labour. I think that for any volume of passengers over shorter distances that would be large enough to mandate a regular airway it would be cheaper to build high-speed rail. At least over the long term the economics of scale should take over and besides that a rail network is more useful for shipping of goods than a airport would be. In the US it'd require similar effort/cost as the Interstate Highway System did, but would probably yield equal economic benefit.
  - psadri 6y ago
    The problem is that train routes are fixed So it only makes sense to connect regions with high populations. Aircraft can go anywhere, including places with small populations.
    - SahAssar 6y ago
      Sure, they could, but they don't. Aircraft require airports, ATC, large land areas for landing/takeoff and so on. In general aircraft for passenger or cargo routes take a few routes and don't shift much.
projectileboy 6y ago
Tough to say how the pandemic will affect this, but EasyJet and the like were absolutely changing the game in Europe up to this spring for medium-length trips. Flying from Nice to Rome is way faster and way cheaper than any of the train options.
barnabee 6y ago
I'm not from the US, and I think this is valid basically anywhere, although the lack of rail infrastructure in the states makes this perhaps particularly appealing. The basic logic is two-fold: First, it's much faster, cheaper, and less contentious to create new routes, and capacity can quickly be switched (even seasonally or in response to events) thanks to neither needing to pay for nor lay tracks. Secondly, it shortens a lot of journeys. Even in countries with pretty extensive rail infrastructure it is common to combine two or more trips via "hub" cities in order to complete a journey. This adds time because you travel further and have to change trains and wait around. The difference could be particularly extreme given that only longer distance intercity trains tend to be high speed, and electric planes will eventually be faster even than high speed rail. A similar change happened with long haul air travel: as twin engine planes have been able to fly further over water due to safety improvements, the traiditional hub model has lost out as many more point-to-point international routes were created. While I think they might re-shape regional transport in some pretty important ways, electric planes won't replace high speed rail (and kerosene burning jets) on more popular routes, at least not for a while (and perhaps, debatably, never). Trains are incredibly efficient and hard to beat when you need to regularly move a lot of people, and electric aircraft, while they're about to become useful, are going to remain relatively small and range limited for quite a while.
muzani 6y ago
I thought it would be more appealing in cities with horrid traffic jams like Jakarta. Public transport exists, but can never be as good as it could be in a place without city planning. We've had staff from there work remote, because commuting to the office would take half a day (one-way). We've literally flown them to an office in another country to get access to the hardware they were working on because it was easier than getting into the main office.

supernova87a 6y ago

> The battery energy density still needs to improve somewhat but that is happening. "Somewhat"? The energy density needs to get better by a factor of like, an order of magnitude to be competitive. And it's still going to require human pilots for at least 10 years even aside from that.

mulcahey 6y ago

Elon’s been thinking about this a lot apparently. https://youtu.be/RyS92KPQnjk https://youtu.be/RyS92KPQnjk

muzani 6y ago

Sounds like "flying motorcycle". Just find a way to go from work to the office, without all the turns, speed bumps and traffic. A friend's company did a prototype of this and it was quite good, but all the negative publicity demotivated them.