SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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:
Under the agreement, Uber will provide NASA with details and data on its plans for a flying taxi service, which the agency will use to simulate flights over Dallas-Fort Worth. This data will address scenarios involving air traffic, collision mitigation, and air space management. It is NASA's first such agreement related to urban air mobility (UAM) specifically focused on modeling and simulation.
[...] Uber also signed an agreement with the US Army to develop and test "flying taxi" aircraft for the company's mobility service. The company will jointly develop and fund research into rotor technology with the US Army's corporate research lab.
Previously: Uber Lays Out Vision for Flying Commuter Transit
Uber Hires Veteran NASA Engineer to Develop Flying Cars
Related: An Idea That Just Might Take Off
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:30PM (5 children)
Imagine how many they could kill from the air.
Seriously, these people need to be taken behind the barn. They have no business designing technology.
When is the arrest warrant going out for the deployment of intentionally crippled self driving software? [soylentnews.org]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:52PM
I applaud, and totally support, the idea that they try their tech really really far from my house.
They triggered my BS detector by giving 3-digit future prices, the fact that said price is unrealistic by aviation standards (including takeoffs/landings and vehicle costs) notwithstanding.
(Score: 4, Funny) by bart9h on Thursday May 10 2018, @06:05PM (1 child)
I have just finished making my t-shirt with a giant qrcode on the front and the back, which translate to "I AM NOT A PLASTIC BAG".
Now I can walk safely on the streets again.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday May 10 2018, @08:39PM
Why not the URL for Goatse?
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday May 10 2018, @07:27PM
Oh, my God!
OH, THE HUMANITY!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @08:56PM
Let them start in a "dereg" state, get the kinks out there, and THEN they can bring it to our blue states. Deal?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:36PM (4 children)
Generally you see whacked out stuff having nothing to do with core competencies when a company is dying or rudderless. So I don't have to pull the financials to know Uber must be having problems.
Helicopter transport is an attractive market because the NYC shuttle business has three public heliports in Manhattan and for supply and demand reasons the supply is constrained so you pay like 5x as much for a ten minute ferry to the airport as you'd pay for an hour long sightseeing tour simply because people willing to pay for a copter instead of an hour long taxi during rush hour will pay "anything" so it superficially appears to be a hungry market of great profitability... however the reason why the supply and demand imbalance exists is you can't land on rando skyscrapers only three public ports and there's a lot of safety law stuff to enforce such that the fundamental problem isn't that you need a shitty app, the problem is Manhattan needs like 50 heliports to carry all the possible traffic which would collapse the price, not 3. Yes I totally believe if you don't follow any transport laws and building codes and all that stuff, you can heli-transfer much cheaper than current NYC rates, much much cheaper, but a crappy app isn't going to fix any of that.
AFAIK "vertiport" in Chicago is the same issue. Tons of demand, like one public heliport in the loop, guess what the price is for that hyper limited commodity, and no a shitty app isn't going to magically build more helipads.
There's nothing really enjoyable about a commute in NYC or Chicago, not that I've seen when visiting. If you dropped the dough for a bizjet rental or maybe first class, it would be sensible to drop the dough for a heli-transfer; its never going to sell to cattle-car class econo plane transport crowd and there's not enough real estate for the helipads anyway.
If you think liberals whine about how evil cars are in an urban environment, for a good time ask them about helipads, the top of their heads pop right off and laser beams come out of their eyes... they, uh, aren't fans.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:19PM (1 child)
And helicopter transport is so popular it has sprung up in hundreds of cities across the nation... Oh, wait.
Even the NYC operations are scheduled flights. I don't think anybody is doing on-demand.
But lets assume it magically appeared, and you could hail an Uber from any of a few dozen places (saying nothing about anyone's front yard or rooftop). They will instantly find this doesn't scale. You can't dump dozens of aircraft, even those that stay below some arbitrary altitude, into a smallish area and expect it to go well.
The flying taxi world of The Fifth Element is not coming to a city near you.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday May 10 2018, @08:30PM
Well, the special sauce of NYC is NYC is old and has weird geographical constraints such that its painful to go from the cool places to the airport and the cool places are ridiculously rich. I don't see it selling, well, pretty much anywhere else. Maybe the Wash DC area would LIKE it but I don't think the national monument SAM sites would respond well.
It would be an epic battle to watch, as drivers know you can tell the local speed ticket revenue generators and taxi medallion rent seekers to stick it, and get away with it, at least for a little while, but WRT aviation you can't randomly fly planes around buildings in NYC without immediate F-16 or F-22 response and merely slightly delayed FAA response. Uber fake taxis could run for months before legal speed bumps, helo service will probably make it about one flight, maybe less.
It looks like NYC helo service is ridiculously profitable if you don't look at the details, but the restriction on supply is the limited number of heliports and some FAA hand wavery such that merely making an app and telling the local licensing authorities to suck it might have worked great for making taxis that aren't regulated like taxis, but its not gonna fly (get the pun, fly?) with helo service.
I don't really get the point of "uber is small scale" because the NYC services I'm aware of use 4-seater choppers not CH-47 that would be analogous to a chartered bus, so helo service is already small.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 10 2018, @06:25PM
Back in dot com days, I had promoters trying to get us to sell a system for "under $100 a copy" - sure, great target guys, except that a component of our system is a Handspring Visor (flavor of Palm Pilot) that retails for $99. Now, we could buy them in bulk and maybe get that price down some, maybe even to $40 a copy, but then we're adding our own gear to the system which is also costing up more than $100 to purchase the components to build, not counting build labor, quality testing overhead, etc....
They still went out and pitched the concept as "under $100 per copy."
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @07:09AM
Maybe, maybe not dying. Possibly the REAL AGENDA is starting to rear its head. Either tha or they are bloody desperate! Hunting for a nice, juicy MIL contract. Those are worth billions! You can supply a toilet for $800 or $8000, there is no beancounting or accountability. F-35 that can barely function, hundreds of billions down the hole, and no heads rolling. So Uber are trying to sweet up to this kind money and deal...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:09PM (7 children)
I just saw a news clip where a Fox station in Orlando reported on testing and marketing driverless cars to the public.
The young reporter seemed convinced and if I remember correctly, said something to the effect of there won't ever be another driverless car accident again, with a smile. Obviously he won't compensate the next victim's family.
Can Uber purchase local news stories?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:21PM
Driverless cars were never expected to eliminate 100% of accidents and fatalities. Only greatly reduce them, and that's if the vehicles are not in beta mode.
It sounds like the kind of mistake a local reporter would make, especially if they were exposed to lots of hype and Uber kool-aid.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:28PM (5 children)
The reporter probably would say those things for credit deposited in their uber account.
Journalism has slipped so far, its now on a level of Burger flippers.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 10 2018, @06:45PM (3 children)
And who are you more foolish to trust? A face on a screen telling you half truths, or an unseen hand in a kitchen preparing your food?
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @09:21PM (1 child)
The face on the screen, because it can't spit into your food the way most Mexicans do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @02:10AM
Yer so stupid we're almost sorry for you. Almost.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @02:36PM
Never believe a smiling, attractive person who makes promises about tech!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @07:14AM
Just for a second I had an image of a burger with flippers, like a seal. My random contribution for today towards mankind's demise.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday May 11 2018, @02:33PM
All great and wonderful that one wants to lower costs. It is easy to lower costs in space and air travel. The easiest way to do so would be to conveniently ignore any regulations that you don't want to follow, like all those pesky safety aspects. Uber has lots of experience trying to get around regulation, sometimes successfully and sometimes not.
This sig for rent.