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Is the World Ready For Flying Cars? (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report from TechCrunch, adding: "Is the world ready for flying cars? Sebastian Thrun, the supposed godfather of autonomous driving, and several other tech investors seem to think so." From the report: At TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2017, Thrun talked a lot about flying cars and how that was the future of transportation. So did GGV's Jenny Lee, a prolific investor in China. And so did Steve Jurvetson, one of the original investors in SpaceX. The technical backbone for flying cars seems to be there already -- with drones becoming ever-present and advancements in AI and self-driving cars -- but the time is coming soon that flying cars will be the primary mode of transportation. "I can't envision a future of highways [and being] stuck in cars," Thrun said. "I envision a [future] where you hop in a thing, go in the air, and fly in a straight line. I envision a future where Amazon delivers my food in the air in five minutes. The air is so free of stuff and is so unused compared to the ground, it has to happen in my opinion."
Cars today are forced to move on a two-dimensional plane (ramps, clover intersections and tunnels set aside), and while self-driving cars would make it easier for cars to talk to each other and move more efficiently, adding a third dimension to travel would make a lot of sense coming next. Thrun pointed to airplane transit, which is already a "fundamentally great mass transit system." Jurvetson said he was actually about to ride in a flying car before he "watched it flip over" before arriving to talk about some of the next steps in technology onstage. So, there's work to be done there, but it does certainly seem that all eyes are on flying cars. And that'll be enabled by autonomous driving, which will probably allow flying cars to figure out the most efficient paths from one point to the next without crashing into each other. Lee said that China is closely analyzing changes in transportation, which might end up leading to flying cars. "I do want to highlight that there's going to be huge disruption within the transportation ecosystem in China," Lee said. "Cars going from diesel to electric. China has about 200 million install base of car ownership. In 2016, only 1 million cars are electric. The Chinese government hopes to install 5 million parking lots that are electric... Even the Chinese OEMs are buying into flying taxis."
Cars today are forced to move on a two-dimensional plane (ramps, clover intersections and tunnels set aside), and while self-driving cars would make it easier for cars to talk to each other and move more efficiently, adding a third dimension to travel would make a lot of sense coming next. Thrun pointed to airplane transit, which is already a "fundamentally great mass transit system." Jurvetson said he was actually about to ride in a flying car before he "watched it flip over" before arriving to talk about some of the next steps in technology onstage. So, there's work to be done there, but it does certainly seem that all eyes are on flying cars. And that'll be enabled by autonomous driving, which will probably allow flying cars to figure out the most efficient paths from one point to the next without crashing into each other. Lee said that China is closely analyzing changes in transportation, which might end up leading to flying cars. "I do want to highlight that there's going to be huge disruption within the transportation ecosystem in China," Lee said. "Cars going from diesel to electric. China has about 200 million install base of car ownership. In 2016, only 1 million cars are electric. The Chinese government hopes to install 5 million parking lots that are electric... Even the Chinese OEMs are buying into flying taxis."
Is this the tech VC's version of the 7 Minute Abs pitch? "Why would anyone travel in two dimensions when they can travel in three?"
It's a little more complicated than that. Here are some things that don't matter so much in 2D road travel but matter a lot when you're flying
* wind, winds changing at higher altitudes, and wind shear
* Air speed vs ground speed
* Heading vs ground track
* Convective weather (at takeoff, all along path of travel, and at destination)
* Air density (at takeoff, all along path of travel, and at destination)
* Vehicle weight for takeoff and travel, and weight changes as fuel burns
* Lift characteristics at altitude (at takeoff, all along path of travel, and at destination)
* Ability to descend safely if a system fails (single engine?) or you are crashed into
* Empty gas tank doesn't fail gracefully
* Inability to stop moving (probably)
* Obstacles (hills, mountains, towers, buildings
* Etc
As someone who flies, I am (a) certain there will be some sort of flying vehicle some day, and (b) aware there is a lot to figure out. These are all obviously solvable problems because people already do fly. It's just hugely expensive and requires a lot of training (relative to driving). What we are talking about here is ModelT-izing flight which will require a lot of idiot proofing including expensive redundancy while at the same time really driving down the purchase and operational costs of flying. These are not small problems, and these problems are not analogous to the problems of autonomous driving.
If it is personal transportation, and it flies from point A to point B, where neither A nor B is an airport, then it is a flying car.
And not a helicopter.
Or a personal jetpack.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
'It is claimed Pearse flew and landed a powered heavier-than-air machine on 31 March 1903, nine months before the Wright brothers flew their aircraft,[1] but the documentary evidence to support such a claim remains open to interpretation, and Pearse did not develop his aircraft to the same degree as the Wright brothers, who achieved sustained controlled flight.[2] Pearse himself never made such claims, and in an interview he gave to the Timaru Post in 1909 only claimed he did not "attempt anything practical ... until 1904".' -- Wikipedia