from the Bring-on-Korben-Dallas-and-Leeloo dept.
Uber on Thursday laid out a vision for on-demand aircraft that can whisk commuters to home or work in a fraction of the time it would take on the road.
The ride-sharing giant assessed the feasibility of what it called "vertical take-off and landing" vehicles in a 98-page white paper, inviting innovators and entrepreneurs to take flight with the idea.
San Francisco-based Uber said it will be reaching out to cities, manufacturers and others about the concept.
"Just as skyscrapers allowed cities to use limited land more efficiently, urban air transportation will use three-dimensional airspace to alleviate transportation congestion on the ground," said the white paper, authored by Uber chief product officer Jeff Holden and product manager Nikhil Goel.
"A network of small, electric aircraft that take off and land vertically will enable rapid, reliable transportation between suburbs and cities and, ultimately, within cities."
Diagrams in the paper showed aircraft bodies of various designs with propellers that can rotate to allow for vertical lift-off or landing, then move into position for flying forward.
Perhaps Vitalstatistix was onto something.
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Uber Aims to Make its Flying Car Service Cheaper Than Ground Car Ownership
At Uber's Elevate conference, the company revealed some price targets for its upcoming vertical takeoff and landing flying taxi service:
The passenger cost per mile, [Uber Head of Elevate Eric] Allison said, needs to be competitive with the variable cost of car ownership. Car ownership, on a per mile basis, costs between $0.464 to $0.608, according to AAA.
However, uberAIR will not be cheaper on a cost per passenger mile at launch. Initially, uberAIR will cost $5.73 per passenger mile. In the near-term, Uber says it will get the cost down to $1.86 per passenger mile before ideally getting to $0.44 per passenger mile. At that point, it would actually be cheaper to use uberAIR.
uberAIR is scheduled to begin testing in 2020, with the first official passenger trip in 2023.
Additionally, Uber will collaborate with NASA and the U.S. Army on its uberAIR plans:
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @12:51PM
Anyone can have a 'vision'... call me back when they get FAA approval.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday October 31 2016, @01:11PM
Which they won't anytime soon, because it turns out that flying cars are a really dangerous idea. Do you really want the morons who are driving around drunk and weaving all over the road flying around and weaving every which way in the sky? You do that, and you'll have people routinely crashing into the 4th floor of tall buildings.
For those with dreams of turning the Earth into Coruscant, just remember that took a government importing things from across an entire galaxy to make that even remotely work.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1) by driven on Monday October 31 2016, @01:46PM
Agreed, and I will add (as I have said for years): flying cars won't be a reality until they are completely computer driven. Present day seems a lot closer to such a reality.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday October 31 2016, @06:15PM
AND ... The computer can object to flying until some diagnostic code has been addressed.
People drive all the time in cars that they'll fix tomorrow. Because they don't have time today, something's urgent, and that light has been on for three weeks already anyway...
Well, it's not quite the same if you're flying. But people will still think the same about the priorities of dumb engineers who throw random unjustified error codes at them.
Ain't gonna buy no flying car if it can leave me stranded because of a warning light!
(Score: 4, Informative) by Nuke on Monday October 31 2016, @01:18PM
VTOL is very energy inefficient; you are at max power just chucking air at the ground to carry your weight while you do it. I thought we were meant to worry about this sort of thing these days - only yesterday we were talking here about squeezing tiny amounts of waste energy out of car suspension dampers.
urban air transportation will use three-dimensional airspace to alleviate transportation congestion on the ground
There is three-dimensional space under the ground. That is why cities tend to build underground railways. Trains can start and stop without the above-mentioned inefficiency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @01:24PM
Subways are way too unhip. How could a startup get in on that action?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday October 31 2016, @03:49PM
Trouble is, despite being less efficient, vtol is seen as the "easy way". You burn more power but you can get started a lot more quickly and with less fuss.
Think about how much energy is required to dig a subway tunnel: Cutting and moving all that dirt, all the steel and concrete to reinforce it... I wonder what the ROI is in terms of energy usage for such a project. Probably takes a good few years of heavy usage to mitigate the initial energy use of building the thing. And that doesn't even begin to factor into things like acquiring land for station accesses, working around water/ sewage pipes and so on. Although these things ultimately lead to a more energy efficient system, there are huge up-front costs and headaches that can make internet-taxi-jetpacks look a lot more attractive.
Also, VTOL has the advantage that cars have always had over public transport: They can take you from where you are right now to to where you want to get to. Trains can only take people (and their stuff) from one station to another, leaving passengers with additional transport at either end to arrange. Not a problem in some situations, utter PITA in others.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big public transport advocate, just giving reasons why these things aren't always so easy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @04:15PM
Good points, and when we finally transition into heavy renewable energy the power inefficiency will become much less. I would still prefer if our work lives weren't so crazy and we could enjoy longer trips. Also, walking from the station to work or wherever helps maintain regular exercise. Hmm, with the added chances of vehicles falling out of the sky over a densely populated city, I think it might be better if we stuck to rail and other mass transit options.
Started out pro-flight, quickly wound up anti-flight. I think as a very limited business this would be good, up to the FAA to develop flight paths and limit air traffic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @01:43PM
When do you think uber scam will burst?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @01:58PM
It can't happen soon enough...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @02:04PM
It won't. They will replace all the drivers with AI before the service can be widely banned or drivers are recognized as employees. They could even start the roll out of driverless in the cities that impose the most human costs. Like London [ft.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @02:46PM
Something something... job creators... something...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @02:50PM
Something something... fabulous new jobs of the future that everybody with an IQ of 80 can just retrain for overnight!... something...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @03:01PM
So really, what you're saying is that there will be an oversupply of workers for these jobs, resulting in wages that are below-livable?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @03:11PM
That's a best case scenario that requires you to eliminate the minimum wage while the robots don't get cheaper and more capable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 31 2016, @05:07PM
And not just once, but twice:
Mean Automakers Dash Hope For Flying Cars https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hGjl3zcJMk [youtube.com]
Compost-Fueled Cars: Wouldn't That Be Great? - Onion Talks - Ep. 1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkGMY63FF3Q [youtube.com]