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Uber's 'Elevate' Project Aims To Bring Flying Electric Cars To Cities By 2026 (businessinsider.com)

Posted by msmash on from the flying-to-work dept.

Uber has revealed a new project through which it aims to bring flying cars to commuters by 2026. The company published a white paper today outlining its plans for Uber Elevate, a network of on-demand electric aircraft. Business Insider adds: Known as VTOL aircraft -- short for Vertical Take-Off and Landing -- the aircraft would be used to shorten commute times in busy cities, turning a two-hour drive into a 15-minute trip. According to a piece out from Wired on the new plans, Uber doesn't plan to build the aircraft themselves. The ride-hailing company will bring together private companies and the government to deal with the larger issues of making this project a reality, Wired reports. The vehicles would be able to travel at about 150 mph for up to 100 miles and carry multiple people, including a pilot, according to Wired.

13 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. Money for nothin'... by meta-monkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The ride-hailing company will bring together private companies and the government to deal with the larger issues of making this project a reality

    "We don't actually want to do any of the work. You guys handle that. We just want the profits."

    --
    We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
    1. Re:Money for nothin'... by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What they really want to do is to do to Airtraffic what they did to Taxi services.

      Uber is a taxi service that doesn't have to abide by the same laws and regulations that other taxi services do. By not having to follow rules and regulations (By claiming to be ride share).

      They want to provide air-traffic service (maybe intra city at first but willing to bet this becomes inter city) without having any of the airtraffic regulations. I bet this has very little to do with "flying cars" and more to do with circumventing laws to get it done cheaper.

      --
      "That's the way to do it" - Punch
    2. Re:Money for nothin'... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Hard to see this working at all. Instead of hundreds of different cities with varying rules about who can drive on their roads and 50 states with similarly varying rules you have one Federal entity - the FAA which strictly regulates air traffic from the top of your lawn to the Karmin line. They are not going to be bluffed into changing rules for commercial human air traffic because a bunch of avaricious Millennials want to hone in on the action.

      You want to start an airline, fine. Go ahead. Be prepared. It's not all that easy.

      Especially when you don't even have the aircraft design.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    3. Re:Money for nothin'... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Well, in addition to flying, I hope they are also fully autonomous. Only then will I finally know what it was like to live in London in the mid '40s when Germany was lobbing the V2s in.

  2. Worse than a bus by Kohath · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It will leave from a terminal, not from where you are. It will arrive at a terminal, not your destination. It will go on a schedule, not when you're ready. It will be a lot more expensive than a bus ticket. It won't work in bad weather. There will be TSA (unless we come to our senses before 2026).

    It's not an inherently bad idea, but who is it for? Who'll be willing to pay the fare? Who has a 2 hour commute?

    Are they going to swap out the battery with a charged one for the return trip? And why are they saying it will be quiet? Are helicopters loud because of combustion, or because the blades disturb the air?

  3. Uber Teleportation by DirkDaring · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They should announce that too since it has about the same percent of it happening in 10 years.

  4. That's called a "helicopter" by Ranbot · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "Vertical Take-off and Landing" (VTOL) vehicle is marketing bullshit for helicopter. Why don't they try working with existing technology? Or at least show us a mass-producible electric-powered helicopter before telling us about your ride-sharing services with one. Seems like putting the cart before the horse. One step at a time there Uber, but thanks for the PR update.

  5. Re:FINALLY by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Depends on the technology. The failure mode for a lot of aircraft is that they simply glide to the ground. Even helicopters / autogyros do something similar - there's still a lot of momentum in the rotors and you sycamore down to the ground. It's not like the antigravity suddenly fails and you're back to having weight again.

    When I was learning to fly, engine failure was one of the things that I had to practice a lot. Engine failure immediately after takeoff is potentially dangerous, because you don't have an engine and you don't have enough speed or altitude to go very far. You typically have to land in a field (or, if you don't want to damage your aircraft in a training exercise, you throttle the engine back and feather the prop, then line up your emergency landing and turn the engine back to maximum late in the approach so that you stay in the air).

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  6. 10 years away by Macdude · · Score: 3, Funny

    Flying cars, only ten years away since 1930.

    --
    "Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
  7. Someone is confused by smooth+wombat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    the aircraft would be used to shorten commute times in busy cities

    Obviously the person who thought up this idea has no idea how traffic in cities work, let alone the other issue of how to navigate between tall, narrowly-spaced buildings.

    And no, the chase scene in Phantom Menace or the sky paths of Bladerunner are not how it's done.

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  8. Obligatory XKCD... by x0ra · · Score: 3, Interesting

    https://xkcd.com/678/

  9. faa says they can't be a private pilot and cost of by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    faa says they can't be a private pilot and cost of all of the safety stuff add's up fast.

  10. Yeah, sure by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 4, Informative

    > The vehicles would be able to travel at about 150 mph for up to 100 miles

    Cruising at 150 mph is pretty energy expensive, even the tiny Moony M20 series needed the better part of its 200 hp to maintain a 150 mph cruise and most other aircraft using the same engine, say the Piper Arrow or (Rockwell) Commander 112 are generally closer to 120 mph cruise and maybe 140 full-throttle.

    So if you convert that to electrical terms, 200 hp is 150 kW. To run that for 45 minutes (takeoff, cruise, land) you need 112.5 kW of battery, and with reserves and stores, at least 150 kW. The Tesla 85 kWh pack is 544 kg, so we're looking at something on the order of 960 kg, or a bit over a ton just for the battery. For comparison, a fully loaded Piper Arrow with four passengers, baggage and a load of fuel is 2,500 lbs.

    Now that's assuming you're flying straight and level using wings, the efficient way to fly. This claims to be VTOL, which adds A HUGE AMOUNT.

    So, yeah, I'll believe it when I see it.