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Larry Page Is Secretly Working On a Flying Car (bloomberg.com)
Google co-founder Larry Page is personally investing in flying cars. Page has been secretly bankrolling Zee.Aero and Kitty Hawk, two California-based startups working on developing a flying car, reports Bloomberg, citing 10 people familiar with the matter. From the report: Better materials, autonomous navigation systems, and other technical advances have convinced a growing body of smart, wealthy, and apparently serious people that within the next few years we'll have a self-flying car that takes off and lands vertically -- or at least a small, electric, mostly autonomous commuter plane. About a dozen companies around the world, including startups and giant aerospace manufacturers, are working on prototypes. Furthest along, it appears, are the companies Page is quietly funding. "Over the past five years, there have been these tremendous advances in the underlying technology," says Mark Moore, an aeronautical engineer who's spent his career designing advanced aircraft at NASA. "What appears in the next 5 to 10 years will be incredible."
Well, it's about time. But will this really make commuting easier?
Well, gee, it's not much of a SECRET now, is it?
>> Google co-founder Larry Page is personally investing in flying cars.
Sweet - I wonder if he'll also go in with me on an emu farm - I've heard they're the next big thing!
Not so secret anymore...
Larry Page Was Secretly Working On a Flying Car
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
You're going to need better fences.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Well that's nice and all, but this is just rich people with ego vanity projects...
It only takes some basic math of the energy required to lift a pound into the air, then move it forward in the air, to see the problems with this.
This has been tried over and over for years, by people who either don't understand the issues, or don't care and assuming magic will happen.
The whole thing is beyond absurd... As Homer Simpson once said, "Lisa, in this house we obey the laws of Thermodynamics!"
This is slightly off topic, but does anyone else find it weird that we are on the cusp of all these radical new technology breakthroughs, yet we can no longer build enough new houses each year to keep up with population growth?
Imagine telling someone in the 1960s, when houses and transport infrastructure were being developed at record pace, that in the future we would indeed have the wrist watch phones and flying cars, but a high income family wouldn't be able to afford a rundown victorian era worker's cottage within an hour's commute of their job.
Something has gone very wrong with our economy if it is delivery these sorts of toys, yet basic needs go begging.
Given the state of US air traffic control, I hope somebody is working on an upgrade. There's no way a flock of flying anythings is going to be accommodated without one.
Everything that has been touted as a flying car is in reality a Driving Plane.
These devices have to meet much stricter regulation (via entities such as the FAA) than any car would need to meet to be roadworthy. I can take a s ledge hammer to my car and still legally be able to drive it on the road, but try that with a plane and see how far that gets you.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Flying cars... because "Larry Page Is Secretly Working On an Airplane" just sounds boring.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
If I look at the number of idiots / texters / drunks that I see on the road right now, I'm quite sure having all these people in a 3d space 100m up in the air is going to be very safe indeed.
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
You know what it means when someone says that, don't you, Slashdotters? It means it's just an idea they had, and they have a vague idea how to do it, but none of the details are worked out yet and they don't even have a proof-of-concept yet. It's basically clickbait for investors who have more dollars than sense.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Flying cars have to fight against gravity, which will always make them less efficient than ground based cars that mainly have to deal with friction.
Secret twist: Larry Page posted this story to Slashdot, to make more people interested, thus driving up the stock price.
a flying monkey. And the physics is less stack against that too.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The article briefly mentioned a few of the competitors.
My favorite of this whole new 'class' of flying machines is the Velocopter.
It has 16 outrunner brushless DC electric motors on fixed prop blades. All flying is done essentially through the software and a single joystick (no rudder pedals or separate throttle).
The fact that it has no actuated flight surfaces, and the blades are in a fixed position, the build complexity of this machine is waaay simpler and to lower tolerances than just about any other flying machine out there.
Of course, right now on battery alone the range is pretty poor (prob like 15-20 min of flying time, tops), but with a gas turbine generator it should be extended quite significantly.
While it isn't exactly the most efficient at flying compared to even helicopters, I think its simplicity, safety (very redundant), and relative quietness makes up for that.
Drivers can't handle simple left/right turns so they're trying out these annoying "roundabouts" here in the US, do you really want the average driver to have a FLYING vehicle?
Flying cars will (almost certainly) never be a significant thing within the lifetime of anyone reading this. Yes it technically it is possible to build a (crappy) car that will fly with current technology but not in a way that has any meaningful utility. To have a genuinely useful flying car there would have to be a massive advance in compact energy sources and there is no reason to believe that will happen any time soon. There also would have to be substantial advances in automated piloting because there are relatively few trained pilots and even fewer with the financial resources to buy a frivolous vehicle like a flying car. A huge portion of the driving public can barely operate a car safely and competently. Anyone who thinks these people can handle a plane is delusional.
Building a flying car necessarily means you end up with a device that can't fly very well and can't drive very well and fills a nonexistent need. Someone else rightly pointed out that they are really driving planes, not flying cars. To make it light enough to fly necessarily means sacrificing durability and crash-worthiness on the road. Even minor fender benders would render the vehicle unable to fly safely. Driving one in bad weather (especially snow) seems like a terrible idea. Handling will suck and it will be hard to make it comfortable and quiet. Even if you do manage make one it's going to be outrageously expensive because the market is tiny and the vehicle is needlessly complicated. So it doesn't work physically and it doesn't make sense economically.
Well, it's about time.
About time for what? A fragile, expensive, complicated, inefficient vehicle that won't fly or drive very well, that few people can actually operate safely and that nobody actually needs? What problem does a flying car actually solve for anyone better than what is available now? To fly it you have to drive to an airport anyway in most cases where there already are planes available. How is a flying car any more useful than driving to an airport, flying in a real plane and then renting a car at your destination? The number of use cases where a flying car would provide an actual advantage is vanishingly small.
But will this really make commuting easier?
Not even a little bit even if we presume that it is technologically or economically feasible. Which it isn't.
Not anymore...
Totally eliminate the traffic jams that four way stop signs that have littered all the intersection in CT have created.
This is slightly off topic, but does anyone else find it weird that we are on the cusp of all these radical new technology breakthroughs, yet we can no longer build enough new houses each year to keep up with population growth?
What are you talking about? We have no trouble building enough housing. If anything we have the problem that we have too much housing in many places. That's a big part of the reason we had the economic crash in 2008. The housing market is cyclical and sometimes there is more capacity than others but there isn't any sort of meaningful inability to build enough housing.
Imagine telling someone in the 1960s, when houses and transport infrastructure were being developed at record pace, that in the future we would indeed have the wrist watch phones and flying cars, but a high income family wouldn't be able to afford a rundown victorian era worker's cottage within an hour's commute of their job.
I don't know where you live but that doesn't describe anywhere within a 500 mile radius of where I live. Out here in the real world that people commuting more than 40 minutes to their job is fairly rare. Average travel time to work in the US is right around 25 minutes right now. Now if you insist on working in downtown San Francisco where all the Google workers are jacking up the rent, then it might be a problem but that doesn't apply to 99+% of us. If you can't afford to live someplace, move to where you can afford it. A house in the midwest where I live costs literally 1/5 of the same house near New York City.
I can't wait to see it try to pass those to, you know, be legal to even use on roads.
Everyone in Silly Valley (There's a reason why that nickname is sticking) has no clue about the rest of the World.
You people are worse than Wall Street, now.
It should be done this year according to Back To The Future Part II.
I don't trust 99% of Amuricans with drone, I don't trust 100% of Amuricans with a flying car!
Electric, V/STOL, automated so there's no real skill required. Sounds useful to me as long as it can safely land in a parking lot.
We don't have an energy source adequate to do electric flying propulsion - not even close. V/STOL is very expensive - you're basically talking about a helicopter or tilt-rotor - and very complicated. The maintenance alone would be prohibitively expensive. We don't have anywhere close to the level of automation required for fully automated piloting and we don't have appropriate infrastructure either. You can't just land in a parking lot safely. Prop wash is a real thing and you have to design landing pads or runways to land safely.
Doesn't sound feasible to me, but then self-driving cars didn't either 5 years ago.
Not the same problem at all. Self driving cars are a problem of sensors and routing and logic. Flying cars are problem of physics and infrastructure in addition to the problems of sensors, and routing. Getting something big enough to carry people to fly takes a LOT of energy even if it is very light. A flying car is a FAR more difficult problem to solve than a self driving car and we aren't in any danger of solving it anytime soon.
It's hard to think of a boat that's more fuel efficient than a sailboat.
Not to mention that sailing is a solved problem. You can move a huge sailboat vast distances with comparatively modest power requirements and nobody is trying to get a sailboat to be amphibious. What would be absurd would be trying to adapt a sailboat to drive on roads. That is basically what people are trying to do with flying cars (which really are driving planes). Even if you manage to get it to work it's not going to do a very good job of flying or driving (or sailing). A sailboat is great in the water. A plane is great in the air. A car is great on the road. Combining them isn't likely to prove productive and doesn't solve any obvious problem in an economically practical way.
Someone telling you a secret make it no longer a secret.
This guy has been working on a flying car for like 50 years.
Funny thing is, his car is the coolest looking of them all.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Could they make an exemption for short hops? For example, mini landing ports could be set up that are roughly 5 miles or less apart. As long as the vehicle can match the speed of available roads, it may not need to be a "full car" to merely get to its final destination.
Tractors usually get an exemption, and they are slower than what I imagine for a flying commute car.
Table-ized A.I.
Larry provides perfectly acceptable buses for employees.
Personal flying cars for jerb creators.
And the rest of you useless eaters can SUCK IT.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Google are the Toni Basil of the computing world. Or Leicester City, if you prefer.
Let someone else make it, then buy them out. After that you can fuck up the interface and scrap it.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We can't seem to get people to drive right on the ground let alone in the air. The congestion problems will only be enhanced as we would see inexperienced pilots taking to the air in low flying craft. Dodging all those drones that will also begin to crowd the skies. No thanks, at least when I crash on the ground I have a better chance of survival.
Roads? Where we're going, we won't need...roads.
Funny, people have adapted sailboats to work on roads. Or off them even.
Just because something is technically possible doesn't make it a good idea. An amphibious sailboat is a fun but dumb idea. A flying car is a fun but dumb idea.
Shh, don't tell these people!
Allow me roll my eyes. Yes people are working on electric airplanes. No they haven't gotten very far with them and their efforts certainly are nothing that is going to result in a mass production flying car within my lifetime. Why? The best power source we have available are some lithium batteries which are great but still have a power to weight ratio that limits flight to short duration flights of very light aircraft. A very light aircraft makes for a very terrible road going car. Even as airplanes these electric powered versions are basically proof of concept vehicles. Nothing that is going to displace fossil fuel powered planes any time soon and certainly not going to see mass market adoption without substantial improvements.
Yes, all of those flying pedestrians darting out into your path, other commuters slamming on the brakes to avoid a flying cat, drivers going the wrong way down a one-way air lane, your maximum rate of cornering varying by a couple orders of magnitude depending on conditions just like an icy vs. dry road...
If you think those are harder problems than the engineering problems in a flying car you don't understand the physics, economics or regulation involved. A mass market flying car will require a vastly upgraded power plant, navigation controls well beyond what is available today, substantial improvements in reliability and durability, substantial regulatory changes, maintenance infrastructure, ground infrastructure and much more. All the problems you face in developing a self driving car and quite a lot more apply to a flying car because very few people are competent pilots. (most are barely competent drivers) A self driving car is basically putting sensors and controls on an existing and well understood vehicle. Not so with a flying car - that has to be designed from scratch. And you have to solve all these problems in a way that makes them economically practical which frankly is going to be nigh impossible.
Actually, the land sailers are a lot of fun.
I've seen them and yes they look like fun. However they aren't much practical use, particularly in places where there are obstacles. Not going to see one sailing up main street any time soon.
Planes that drive on highways? When did "flying car" come to mean a plane that drives on a highway?
Pretty much from day one. If you can't drive it on a road then it isn't really a car now is it? If it flies from point to point then it's just a VTOL aircraft. We already have that - it's called a helicopter.
Slashdot has filled up with unimaginative luddites.
Imagination without a plan is just a dream. People who are good at imagining the future actually try to figure out what is possible and just as importantly what won't work. I love the idea of a flying car. But I also have an engineering degree and a business degree and decades of manufacturing experience so I understand why they won't happen any time soon. I understand that for a flying car to be realistic we would need huge technological advances in compact energy supplies, autopilot systems, infrastructure, materials, and much more. And even if you can develop all the technology there still has to be a economic case for it. I'm not even getting into the safety and reliability and maintenance problems which are legion. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm saying that we aren't even remotely close to it being feasible right now. I think we will have humans on Mars long before we see a mass market flying car. It's that hard of a problem.
Flying cars will use the loads of helipads and short runways that will be built everywhere.
You don't get it do you? There aren't going to be any flying cars within our lifetime. Won't happen. Even if it were currently possible to make a vehicle that performed well (it isn't) the idea has no economic advantage over dedicated vehicles. It's cheaper to drive to an airport or helopad, rent time on a dedicated aircraft, and then rent a vehicle at your destination. Show me an economic case where a flying car makes more sense than that and only then can we start worrying about conquering the physics involved or building infrastructure. Until then it is just a quirky idea that engineers like to play with in their spare time for kicks.
My company was a supplier for a company that made a combination ATV and jetski. Cool product and actually worked pretty well. But they are no longer making any new ones. Why? The vehicle was more expensive than an ATV and a jetski separately and nobody bought them. It solved a problem very few people had. Most people don't need a vehicle that can do both activities. Flying cars are no different. For technologies to converge there has to be a use case that makes economic sense. As far as I can tell there isn't one for flying cars. Being cool just isn't enough.
Get on the bus.