5 ms·

We have gained so much in terms of technological progress, consistently reducing the energy required to go from point A to point B, it surprises me how we are a

We have gained so much in terms of technological progress, consistently reducing the energy required to go from point A to point B, it surprises me how we are again increasing it for getting from point A to point B. The concept is great, but the push for mass market adoption bugs me. These things are not efficient modes of transport. It takes a lot of energy to move one person from A to B.

aero-glide2 5y ago
I don't want to just transport, i want to explore from high above.
noduerme 5y ago
I agree. No one ever said waverunners were a practical form of transportation, but they still sell millions of them. This does look like a really fun personal toy, though. I can easy imagine some rich dudes taking them for Endor-style races through the forest up here.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  Like a powered paraglider on steroids.
- tweedledee 5y ago
  That would involve Endor-style crashes, it would be insanely dangerous. Flying FPV drones gives much of the same feeling without the all the death.
  - anonporridge 5y ago
    You can also take gondolas to the top of mountains, but people still climb them, putting themselves in unnecessary risk of death for the same views. There will always be some subset of people willing to do crazy dangerous things when similar safe alternates exist. And I for one am excited to see the race footage.
    - tweedledee 5y ago
      I've flown FPV drones through forests, it's insane. The reaction speeds needed are crazy. It is almost impossible to last a day without crashing. I'm sure there are lots of fun things to do with it, but Endor style races is not one of them. The people willing to do things that crazy don't last very long.
      - anonporridge 5y ago
        You could say the same thing about free solo climbing. Yet people still do it (and regularly die) and keep pushing the limits of what we thought was possible.
        tweedledee 5y ago
        I am aware crazy people do exist. It's a matter of degree and I would suggest that flying this thought a forest Endor style would be far more dangerous than free solo climbing.
        rob74 5y ago
        It's more or less like wingsuit flying, just faster and with obstacles much closer. So yeah, I would say orders of magnitude more dangerous than free solo climbing...
        leoedin 5y ago
        Wingsuit flying is pretty well known as a hobby that eventually kills almost everyone who does it. It seems once you start flying as close to rocks as you can for fun there's some sort of skill-risk feedback loop that eventually kills you.
        anonporridge 5y ago
        And yet, people still do it. In fact, the sport is growing.
  - noduerme 5y ago
    I live in a forest between a river and a winding road... I see people do craaazy shit all the time, from death races in expensive sports cars on the road to wave running way too close to the dock to loading paintball guns with ball bearings and shooting them in the woods; and I'm telling you it's not if someone does an Endor race with this thing, it's when.
ctvo 5y ago
> The concept is great, but the push for mass market adoption bugs me. > These things are not efficient modes of transport. It takes a lot of energy to move one person from A to B. Will you not entertain the possibility that a form of travel using geodesic distance may be more efficient? Going from Brooklyn to Manhattan and bypassing traffic, for example (a small body of water where flying across would be more efficient for those not familiar)? Or iterative improvements to it, if it gains adoption, would improve whatever numbers you're using for your energy requirements? Or that it may reduce our need to make new infrastructure, and that may also reduce energy costs? There are a lot of things here to be so certain.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  Mass use of flying cars is fundamentally infeasible on any realistic timescale for a huge list of reasons beyond energy inefficiency. Accidents are catastrophic. The noise would be insane. Minor body damage that wouldn't matter for a car could cause the whole thing to crash. You'd need a complex traffic control system that would never be allowed to miss a beat without risk a Kessler syndrome like event. And in your water example, building a bridge would be drastically better for a high traffic use case. In cases where you can't justify infrastructure build out, it will still be more efficient to use all terrain ground vehicles. And no, hovering in the air and fighting gravity ever moment of active travel will never be anywhere close to the efficiency of a rolling vehicle.
- kumarvvr 5y ago
  > Will you not entertain the possibility that a form of travel using geodesic distance may be more efficient? I completely agree. But for mass market personal aerial vehicles, regulation would eventually force vehicles to fly close to ground (for safety of self and others, better fall 30 feet than 300 feet) In this scenario, geodesic distance hardly makes any difference. Personal aerial vehicles are never going to be safe. Not for the lack of innovation or technology, but for human nature. Ever see how many people drive their cars with the "check engine" lights on? Or how many fail to get theirs serviced in time, or change the oil in time? The mass market is not fit to drive their own personal aerial vehicles. There are niche uses, such as medical emergencies, policing, etc. Putting these into the hands of everyone is a disaster waiting to happen.
antisthenes 5y ago
> We have gained so much in terms of technological progress, consistently reducing the energy required to go from point A to point B, it surprises me how we are again increasing it for getting from point A to point B. It takes exactly the same amount of energy to go from point A to point B as it did 10,000 years ago. What we've done is gotten better at packing more energy generation in a smaller volume/envelope.
- schoen 5y ago
  > It takes exactly the same amount of energy to go from point A to point B as it did 10,000 years ago. Only against conservative fields like gravity, not against friction! When I bike 10 blocks, I use less energy than when I walk 10 blocks.
bullen 5y ago
At 100km/h this thing only has a roundtrip range of ~15km with the 20 minute onboard energy. I'm not complaining about the vehicle to transported ratio though, it's about the same as my lead-acid e-bike: http://elhjul.se http://elhjul.se
- tdeck 5y ago
  This comment makes me wonder if something like this could be supplemented with human power to extend its flight range.
  - mkl 5y ago
    Not enough to be useful, I think. The Jetson One has a maximum power output of 88kW, and a very fit human (e.g. elite sprint cyclist) can briefly reach up to 2.5kW (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8282832/#:~:text=Maximum%20power%20values%20as%20high,track%20sprint%20cyclists%20%5B39%5D https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8282832/#:~:tex....).
    - nradov 5y ago
      Elite cyclists can only hit 2.5kW for a few seconds. Sustained output for about 20 minutes will only be in the 0.4kW range, and regular people can't even do half of that.

aero-glide2 5y ago

I don't want to just transport, i want to explore from high above.

noduerme 5y ago

I agree. No one ever said waverunners were a practical form of transportation, but they still sell millions of them. This does look like a really fun personal toy, though. I can easy imagine some rich dudes taking them for Endor-style races through the forest up here.

anonporridge 5y ago
Like a powered paraglider on steroids.
tweedledee 5y ago
That would involve Endor-style crashes, it would be insanely dangerous. Flying FPV drones gives much of the same feeling without the all the death.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  You can also take gondolas to the top of mountains, but people still climb them, putting themselves in unnecessary risk of death for the same views. There will always be some subset of people willing to do crazy dangerous things when similar safe alternates exist. And I for one am excited to see the race footage.
  - tweedledee 5y ago
    I've flown FPV drones through forests, it's insane. The reaction speeds needed are crazy. It is almost impossible to last a day without crashing. I'm sure there are lots of fun things to do with it, but Endor style races is not one of them. The people willing to do things that crazy don't last very long.
    - anonporridge 5y ago
      You could say the same thing about free solo climbing. Yet people still do it (and regularly die) and keep pushing the limits of what we thought was possible.
      - tweedledee 5y ago
        I am aware crazy people do exist. It's a matter of degree and I would suggest that flying this thought a forest Endor style would be far more dangerous than free solo climbing.
        rob74 5y ago
        It's more or less like wingsuit flying, just faster and with obstacles much closer. So yeah, I would say orders of magnitude more dangerous than free solo climbing...
        leoedin 5y ago
        Wingsuit flying is pretty well known as a hobby that eventually kills almost everyone who does it. It seems once you start flying as close to rocks as you can for fun there's some sort of skill-risk feedback loop that eventually kills you.
        anonporridge 5y ago
        And yet, people still do it. In fact, the sport is growing.
- noduerme 5y ago
  I live in a forest between a river and a winding road... I see people do craaazy shit all the time, from death races in expensive sports cars on the road to wave running way too close to the dock to loading paintball guns with ball bearings and shooting them in the woods; and I'm telling you it's not if someone does an Endor race with this thing, it's when.

ctvo 5y ago

> The concept is great, but the push for mass market adoption bugs me. > These things are not efficient modes of transport. It takes a lot of energy to move one person from A to B. Will you not entertain the possibility that a form of travel using geodesic distance may be more efficient? Going from Brooklyn to Manhattan and bypassing traffic, for example (a small body of water where flying across would be more efficient for those not familiar)? Or iterative improvements to it, if it gains adoption, would improve whatever numbers you're using for your energy requirements? Or that it may reduce our need to make new infrastructure, and that may also reduce energy costs? There are a lot of things here to be so certain.

anonporridge 5y ago
Mass use of flying cars is fundamentally infeasible on any realistic timescale for a huge list of reasons beyond energy inefficiency. Accidents are catastrophic. The noise would be insane. Minor body damage that wouldn't matter for a car could cause the whole thing to crash. You'd need a complex traffic control system that would never be allowed to miss a beat without risk a Kessler syndrome like event. And in your water example, building a bridge would be drastically better for a high traffic use case. In cases where you can't justify infrastructure build out, it will still be more efficient to use all terrain ground vehicles. And no, hovering in the air and fighting gravity ever moment of active travel will never be anywhere close to the efficiency of a rolling vehicle.
kumarvvr 5y ago
> Will you not entertain the possibility that a form of travel using geodesic distance may be more efficient? I completely agree. But for mass market personal aerial vehicles, regulation would eventually force vehicles to fly close to ground (for safety of self and others, better fall 30 feet than 300 feet) In this scenario, geodesic distance hardly makes any difference. Personal aerial vehicles are never going to be safe. Not for the lack of innovation or technology, but for human nature. Ever see how many people drive their cars with the "check engine" lights on? Or how many fail to get theirs serviced in time, or change the oil in time? The mass market is not fit to drive their own personal aerial vehicles. There are niche uses, such as medical emergencies, policing, etc. Putting these into the hands of everyone is a disaster waiting to happen.

antisthenes 5y ago

> We have gained so much in terms of technological progress, consistently reducing the energy required to go from point A to point B, it surprises me how we are again increasing it for getting from point A to point B. It takes exactly the same amount of energy to go from point A to point B as it did 10,000 years ago. What we've done is gotten better at packing more energy generation in a smaller volume/envelope.

schoen 5y ago
> It takes exactly the same amount of energy to go from point A to point B as it did 10,000 years ago. Only against conservative fields like gravity, not against friction! When I bike 10 blocks, I use less energy than when I walk 10 blocks.

bullen 5y ago

At 100km/h this thing only has a roundtrip range of ~15km with the 20 minute onboard energy. I'm not complaining about the vehicle to transported ratio though, it's about the same as my lead-acid e-bike: http://elhjul.se http://elhjul.se

tdeck 5y ago
This comment makes me wonder if something like this could be supplemented with human power to extend its flight range.
- mkl 5y ago
  Not enough to be useful, I think. The Jetson One has a maximum power output of 88kW, and a very fit human (e.g. elite sprint cyclist) can briefly reach up to 2.5kW (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8282832/#:~:text=Maximum%20power%20values%20as%20high,track%20sprint%20cyclists%20%5B39%5D https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8282832/#:~:tex....).
  - nradov 5y ago
    Elite cyclists can only hit 2.5kW for a few seconds. Sustained output for about 20 minutes will only be in the 0.4kW range, and regular people can't even do half of that.