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Rolls-Royce wants to build a flying taxi:
[...F]lying cars are happening again? Make up your mind! I can't handle all this uncertainty. Let's add it all up, shall we?
We have an Airbus and Audi partnership, currently trying to build a city car/flying taxi concept. We have Uber building a flying taxi hub in Paris. Then we have Kitty Hawk, a secret company founded by Google co-founder Larry Page -- it's working on a project called Cora. Yes, it's another flying taxi.
[...] But guess who else is joining the flying taxi race... Rolls-Royce.
Not the Rolls-Royce of luxury cars fame, Rolls Royce the engine company, that split from the car company decades ago.
That Rolls-Royce is looking to get into the flying taxi game and has drawn up plans to create an electric vehicle that could potentially reach speeds of 400 kilometres per hour (around 250 miles per hour). Rolls-Royce believes it could be ready to launch as early as the next decade, a timeline that's consistent with many of its potential competitors.
Wonder if they will give a special rate to Danny DeVito?
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday July 16 2018, @09:42AM (6 children)
Surely the mass-to-energy ratio of electric is so much worse than petrol (plus engine) that it is a bad idea?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @10:36AM (1 child)
Yes, it is. But short-haul luxury transportation was never about making economical sense.
City-center to airport with business luggage only, 10 minutes guaranteed travel time without a chance of traffic jams, for 500€ one-way? Instead of 50 minutes plus potential holdups for 120€? That's the market they're after, not the "I'm drunk, get me home" crowd ...
After 7-8 hours of flying your human pilots (24h of them!) are paid for the day, the rest is for deprecation, operating cost and profit. Back-of-the-envelope, but sounds doable.
And in 15 years: make them fully autonomous, fire the pilots and slash 150€ off the fare. Even more profit.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday July 16 2018, @12:30PM
There's going to be lots of those once all the business travelers are able to take flying taxis to the airport.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Monday July 16 2018, @10:42AM
Battery technology keeps improving. Soon electrical flying machines will be commercially viable. It makes sense to get in early and develop the rest of the technology in parallel.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Monday July 16 2018, @11:06AM
Yes but, electric motor tech has been (and still is) improving rapidly, and electricity storage tech (ie. battery) is improving too - whereas petrol engine tech is largely static and petrol storage ain't going to get any more weight efficient.
May make sense to start developing vehicles now in anticipation of further improvements in battery tech.
Biggest problem for Rolls may turn out to be legal - is it a car or is it a plane. It may matter because the company split decades ago and one half does cars and the other half does planes, might end up like Apple, agreeing to never go into music business and then iTunes...
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday July 16 2018, @05:02PM (1 child)
You don't understand, man. This is disruptive, man. Those idiots who have been building helicopters for decades, they're so encrusted in their slow methodical habits, man. They don't know how to be Agile and disruptive, man. They don't understand computers, and we understand computers, so we're totally gonna teach them how they should have done their job all along. I have a drone, man. How hard is it to scale a drone to carry people, man ? It's a great idea, and it's only the crusty old people who don't understand code who don't get it.
(Yes, Rolls isn't a fucking Silicon Valley startup. Going after the many many other "we can do that, because Elon can make rockets" Dunning-Kruger optimists)
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 17 2018, @02:35AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves