wrxpilot

People who say stuff like this are bad at math and probably haven’t ridden a “bullet train”.

Rama

The car advocates won't tell you that is far safer to travel by airplane (121) than a car on the highway.

AirBear

My brother has been handling auto claims for a major insurance company for 32 years now. He's got a Nissan Leaf which is about as self driving as you can get now. The technology for self driving is a long ways off. You just can't program a computer for all the stupid things people do. (Like walking a bicycle across a highway late at night). There would have to be limited access self driving only roads or lanes with a physical barrier to stop non-self driving cars from intruding.

Hawker445

Why not discuss autonomous EVTOL?
I don't believe eVTOLs are coming for a very long time. Some say they'll be ready in 5-6 years but i doubt the battery technology is there...yet.

Anyone wonder how much those batteries weigh?

rickair7777

The technology is pretty much there IF the eVTOL people get their fondest wish: reduced safety certification standards.

They would like to be held to statistical safety standard closer to automobiles than aircraft, so they are looking for at least two orders of magnitude in relief from established commercial aviation standards.

If you think about a four-fan VTOL, it's pretty much falling out of the sky if you lose a fan. You can have redundant motors or even two fans in a module but if a goose goes through it, you're done regardless. So you'd need 6 or 8 fan modules for redundancy. In addition to economic cost, the weight penalty of complying with current standards might be too much to overcome with current battery tech.

Since an eVOTL falling out of the sky might land on innocents, I suspect the certification authorities will not give on this.

The other big problem with eVTOLs is pilot cost. The elite visionaries assume they can automate away the pilots any week now but any realist with a technical background knows that's a very long way off. They might be able to automate it to the point where the pilot could fly with a minimalist VTOL rating, that could be acquired mostly in simulators... that's what they really need to do because otherwise they're trying to compete with airlines to hire for a job with the same fundamental economics as taxi cab driver. eVTOLs might work financially with a $30K driver, but they won't work with a $200K driver.

This will play out one of two ways:

1) Regulators hold firm and take a conservative approach. eVTOL/UAM industry will take off very, very slowly and not any time soon.

2) Politicians pressure regulators to fast track the concept. Shortcuts will lead to high profile accidents and other problems, and the industry will set itself back by decades.

So either way, not happening very soon.