Flying vehicles of the future: Companies racing to develop eVTOL "air taxis" 

You could even see him put in the yaw input lol

lol. the Wright Brothers' first flight was 12 seconds.

That thing is a toy. The JOBY is the real thing to watch. Also the only stock that opened green today!

That limited endurance for LIFT, is a factor of the certification to keep the weight down and classified as an ultralight. The platform is likely capable of longer endurance meaning more and heavier battery, different class of aircraft but longer flight time. Energy density will need to improved in batteries, but it will happen.

@@BlueEyed888 We already have flying vehicles. They're called helicopters. They just have a more simple design instead of a bunch of extra propellers and moving parts.

@@Angry.General1461 LOL. A helicopter is a lot more complicated and expensive to maintain, than an oversized electric drone. That's why all those copters we left in Afghanistan were practically useless, the Afghans don't have the $$ and experience maintaining and fixing them.

maybe they can team up and share resources and what they have collectively learned.

@@stant7122 I wonder how much that partnership would cost☕😶📰

Didn't you hear the Joby crashed and was totalled. That will push their time frame back.

...maybe a sight-seeing trip into a wild area with unique jurrasic-era animals frolicking about....nothing could possibly go wrong there

That's why I bought some of their stocks which is still relatively cheap. Hopefully they make it big. ;)

@@BillAnt smart future investment idea, if I were joby I'd start off small you know just to make sure passenger transportation is spot on safe for men, women, kids, idiots and crazy people not to mention the weight of the customers.

Modern airline jets are flown by Computers. A simple PC checks in with a main frame computer in a flight tower, in the city for a flight plan ... push the button

No thanks. I want a computer. On the ground, automated is tough but in the air there are no pedestrians or dogs or potholes.

@@donemigholzjr.7344 if it’s automated sure but there’s a joystick in there like there’s no shot for the foreseeable future that the faa allows this

Only for the rich

Inherently less safe because if it malfunctions, you lose the vehicle, the passenger, and cause damage to whatever it falls on. I can see private firms using these to for execs to go between major hubs and factories, but the Average Joe isn't going to be using them. One person in the video quotes a usage fee comparable to UBER. Not happening - UBER uses conventional vehicles that have a whole infrastructure and cities build around using them = easy access & operation. In no multi-verse will a totally new vehicle show up and be just as cheap in the same space. It might find a niche, but that's not the same.

yet Joby still manage to destroy their only test vehicle

Ehang actually have a video where they simulate one(a few) of their 16 blades failure and still fly amd land safely. Saw this on youtube.

Sorta like having a tire blow out on the highway. Calmly pulling over is the safest way to handle it.

I would still like a parachute available, just in case. Lol.

this is questionable.... one prototype was totaled already... lets wait and see

It’s so funny how people stick with the solutions of the past when there are so many better exciting solutions looming around the corner. Cheaper, safer, faster, lower carbon. Open your mind!

Back then it was just talk. Now we have the vehicles. They are 95% ready. I was excited about this back in the 60s! Looks like I might have a chance to at least get a ride on one before I die.

George Jetson would be appalled at your scorn

uh, no dude. this is coming and coming soon.

May come, but not anytime soon. It will be years before FAA can approve that find of aircraft in urban areas.

@@jenspn00 about two years. Is that a long time to you?

What happen cities do not have subway???? You will be a dinosaur soon.

China built that in a day

that's the next level for Aptera!

If you can live until the 22nd or 23rd centuries then it’s all yours

How far could you possibly go with safety buffer?

That's a scary thought also

15 minutes. Dangerous

I was about to post the same thing. 15 min its not enough. To make a reliable commute you need at least 40 minutes with some reserve. Otherwise too risky and on top of that this things are going to cost way too much money.

Ya, this is CNN after all.

He was actually laughing a little. It must have been a blast.

Yeah that is the first I seen cooper smile now that’s revolutionary!

Max G's reached to total destruction

Good QUESTION

@@g.o.a.t9276 I dream of a world with more trees, less highways..... more stuff on rails (in tunnels) and in the air flown by robots..... owning a car will be obsolete since public transport is way cheaper than owning a robot car....

Tunnels are much more expensive to make than transporting the same stuff on land

Their is no money in it. These guys are in it for the money.. This is not a government project

There's no Future money in that all these inventions that improve transportation and quality of living still have the primary investment ingredient future profits

Or Star Trek

you'll never ride one. Only for the rich when it does come out.

Yes, ànd hardly any traffic in the sky...at least in the city center at low altitude where these air taxi fly.

There are MULTIPLE reasons why autonomous piloting is easier than an autonomous car. 3D is only one of at least a dozen that come to mind. And the autonomous version of these machines is the smarter way to go, versus the human pilot.. again, for multiple reasons

Not only easier im theory, they are already in operation for years. Light show flying drones, yes the ones that are replacing fireworks.

More capitalist horrors beyond my comprehension.

Don't you realize that the mid to upper-middle class, and even the regular poor peasants of the world, want what the rich have? That's why we Uber (our personal drivers), First Class (Our private jet experience), Mercedes and Tesla (our Lambo), etc... Joby is building our version of private helicopter flight that we can't afford.... This is another reason why it will succeed..

heck yes!

Adding a mini airship(zeppelin) can also help by reducing the weight of the batteries .

So chutes would add additional weight, and we still need better batteries that can be rapidly charged or easily swapped out and have longer range per kWh, so I don’t see people manually flying these crafts, that kinda flying would be an option where some rich guy who wants to go flying around using a manual joystick like we’re seeing here, but practically, manual flying is probably not something that would be recommended, as most people wouldn’t have navigation, and piloting skills! Cheers!

its beyond ballistic parachutes....they help yes but in not all conditions

hahahahah.... what????? You're comparing autonomy in the air where you only have to navigate open space and maybe avoid some other aircraft here and there as opposed to autonomy on the ground where there are endless obstacles like other cars, pedestrians, bike riders, motorcycles, stop lights and signs, highway systems, low visibility from weather, debris, etc. etc.......

@@chrisn7847 I don’t even know where to start with your ridiculously juvenile assessment of the coding challenges involved in low altitude metropolitan flight. In addition to figuring out avoidance AI for other aircraft, which itself is no small feat, you have tall buildings, radio and cell towers, flocks of birds, low visibility from weather, lightning etc. During takeoff and landing you have trees, light poles, telephone lines etc. any accident in the air is way more life threatening than a car accident. These things don’t have wings like planes where they can glide into a hard landing. These things will fall right out of the sky when something catastrophic happens. Streetlights and roads actually help autonomous cars get their bearings. Lines in the road help the cars computer know where it should be. You have none of that in the air. Those computers will rely on GPS and ground facing cameras to navigate.. but even that is challenging as the seasons change. Even today there are human air traffic controllers monitoring every single commercial flight to make sure they don’t crash into each other. So no, it’s not easy. You have all of the challenges listed above, and it’s all in three dimensions… not two… which means there are logarithmically more possible scenarios that have to be accounted for.

People can't even drive properly on the ground no less the air, you are totally right.

Good candidate for a Darwin award.

Dead End !

That’s electric bro 😎

Sounds like a great way for rich people to avoid the unwashed masses

@@hackattack713 huh? Why is that?

Sounds precarious! Structures would have to be heavy to hold humans way up in the air, which means a lot of materials go into them, which means pricey. What kind of return do you think cities will earn on that investment?

@@CharlesVanNoland well i think its more cheap than building more roads. Its not necessary mean your are up really high, just above the roads will do or whatever is esthetically pleasing. It makes the city more walkable and bike friendly. The returns will be for health and the cleanliness of the city.

NOPE. Denver, Colorado is one city that tried to get this going, with a number of pedestrian walkways between tall buildings. Useless. No one wants to go up two, three, or four stories to walk across a bridge and then come down again - especially when they can jaywalk in 15 seconds. Also - Las Vegas tried to do this with the Monorail that ran behind the MGM Grand to Ballys and over to the LV Convention Center. People hated it. The worst part is that you had to wind your way through an enormous casino/hotel to get to the monorail station and then wait 20-30 minutes for it to show up. Super inconvenient. So...they tried again with the light rail from Excalibur to Luxor to Mandalay Bay. It's right near the street, so you don't have to walk so far to get to it. And the route is much shorter, so trams came by a lot quicker. Not bad.

That sounds funny but yeah it would suck...I'm tired of technology already...I wish we could go back to life in the 90s.

its more than that...but they help for sure

You are not taking into account how we structure society. This is likely a mode of transportation that the wealthiest 1% would use regularly. In case you haven’t noticed, they also write the laws and they don’t care about our opinions on how loud they are.

@@classwarhooligan923 not true if you live in a western country. Look up on why supersonic flights were banned to fly over land in many countries as an example of this.

@@erikjunesjo Yep. Heard of that. The bourgeois/corporate owned government have already been -bribed- -I mean lobbied. “Ask and you shall receive” for the wealthy. As always, I’ll back my claim up with evidence. Here’s a quick excerpt from the first article I found: “Today marks a significant milestone in the development of civil supersonic flight,” Aerion CEO, Tom Vice, told Avionics in an emailed statement. “We are encouraged that the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration issued a final rule that streamlines and clarifies procedures to obtain FAA approval for supersonic flight testing in the United States. As we approach production and flight testing of the AS2, this rule provides our company the ability to test the AS2 aircraft over land in addition to overwater testing currently planned.” Boom. Sonic f***in’ boom.

Modern airline jets are flown by Computers. A simple PC checks in with a main flight tower in the city for a flight plan ... push the button

Cant happen until it's autonomous only. It'll be pure chaos, death, and destruction if people are allowed to pilot these things.

Not a problem because there are three dimensions so there will be no crowding and flights will be controlled by computers.

That won't happen what makes u think that ppl will own anything after 2030

What will be the take home salary for most people by then, for this to be a reality, is the real question

True, but the batteries are the biggest restriction. They don't have the capacity yet. It's not like a car where velocity helps to aid economy. The further you want to go... the bigger a battery you need; but that adds significant weight; a circular problem. I think someone will figure it out in the next 15 years where it's viable though.

Congrats for being sensible. As an aerospace engineer with a pilots license and qualifications in engineering safety I'd like to see these companies be a lot more realistic and STOP blowing smoke up peoples butts. Just stop and consider how stupid most people are with cars including taxi drivers and then imagine those same people flying overhead at 150mph. Do I want to see new technology that benefits humanity? *ABSOLUTELY YES,* but this stuff isn't what we need right now. Sure there's some novel stuff, but we don't need flying cars and we don't need fantasy garbage like another Theranos. We actually need a lot of other things before this stuff starting with clean energy production. Way too many people think batteries are an answer an they aren't. They are just part Way too many people think electric vehicles will save the planet, while at the same time totally ignoring where the energy comes from. Even if they do think about that they dismiss the concerns with solar and wind but they just don't have the capacity for what modern society needs. In stead they get a feelgood from fantasy technologies like these. *From an engineering standpoint the attitude of society in general is infuriating.*

Every time I see a story on these I think, “and they do what that a helicopter can’t do better?”

monorail, monorail.

Noise is another major one. Remember the Concorde couldn't fly overland because of noise and these things are super noisy if they'll fly over residential areas specifically at night. The video is completely masking the noise.

@@tonywilson4713 We already have flying vehicles. They're called helicopters. They just have a more simple design instead of a bunch of extra propellers and moving parts.

15 minutes at 60 is like 15 miles. 15 miles across is about as large as most cities. Charging and storing these things would be a pain tho. And where would you land? Would need dedicated infrastructure. Also 1 gust and 1 crash and this thing gets shelved.

Battery swap could eliminate downtime. Probably faster than refueling and could easily be automated too. And clearly battery tech doesn’t need to improve if there are functional prototypes that can fly 100s of miles.

@@DannyReed I believe many of the range claims are optimistic and that some are without passengers or test loads. "Hundreds of miles" Nope.

Infrastructure investment requirements for tunnels are not low.

@@Shtofman Thousands of aircraft aren't inexpensive to purchase or maintain.

Battery technology will probably improve with time.

Old people INVENTED computers and smartphones

hahahah it's so funny to see people's instant reactions to innovation... It all makes sense now why throughout history so many miss seeing the future when it was right there in front of them... All because they had limiting thoughts and constraints. Why would I need a car when I have this perfectly good horse? Why would I need to fly when I could take the train, why would I get into a stranger's car to get a ride when I could take a taxi..... I suggest taking one more look at Joby and what they have actually accomplished in a decades time and how they are addressing your concern about commuting to a site.. They have strategic ports close to residences and partnerships with realestate players like REEF who are helping them create new landing locations.

That's the entire intent of these scams. Everybody knows that there will never be flying cars or personal helicopter/drone service. It's just a way to scam investors and launder money.

I hope they all fail. I will curse the day these fill the skies.

We already have flying vehicles. They're called helicopters. They just have a more simple design instead of a bunch of extra propellers and moving parts.

@@Angry.General1461 are you talking to me? That doesn't seem to have anything to do with what I said.

@@pandamonium7996 if you don't like what I said go watch something else you immature troll!

they don't understand

The 2 catch words are license and fuel. Right now most Electric VTOL are being developed under FFA ultralight specifications. No license required, which is what most people are getting excited over. However as you elude, people don't realize they cannot use the current EVTOL being developed for commuting, landing at an airport, or using over any populated areas. They are all just expensive toys for amusing the wildlife. A whole lot of FFA regulations will need to be written before anyone uses one to go anywhere but across the acres on a 7.5 minute trip to milk a cow that ran away. If they want to save enough power to get home again that is. 😁

lower air density is not a real advantage for these aero toys :) lower air density is good for capable wing / rocket speeds

drone traffic signals too.

You’ve obviously never flown a drone.

@@nohandlehere55 sky rage…

The US doesn’t really have the right infrastructure for flying cars right now. Like we have huge parking lots which in theory would work… but only if they were empty or at limited capacity.

@@nohandlehere55 Like the first automobiles were for the wealthy...

Is her trading service in Europe ?

It was a bit tough for me too to entrust my investment to another trader after losing the last one, i had to give it another try again with a deposit of $2000 and when i got my payout i was not only excited but Exp Mrs Tasia Miller earned my trust that day

I doubted her before I gave it a try and it was of no regret

How much exactly does she make of you in every trade don't mind me asking

@Muriel siebert Yeah, I attended her webinar some weeks ago....

Answer: rich people

@@nicholasn.2883 Exactly.

I mean to be fair that's what they said about air travel in the early days of airplanes, too.

The rich would pay upfront but eventually more people will have access just like air travel.

@@frankthefkintank We already have flying vehicles. They're called helicopters. They just have a more simple design instead of a bunch of extra propellers and moving parts.

Too bad air taxi is VAPORWARE

Modern airline jets are flown by Computers. No propellers, use Jet engines, A simple PC on board checks in with a main flight tower in the city for a flight plan ... push the button

Joby’s aircraft is intended to be for short range trips up to 150 miles. You are not going to fly from LA to New York with an air taxi. It can be charged at every passenger pick up location, so it can fly all day long. No problem with batteries at Joby.

yep...

no

@@V0YAG3R so VOYAGER wasn't impressive technology either? Time waits for no man, and time will tell.

Impressive as a single flight with a single plane, but how do you control 10,000 in the air over a city? You can have impressive technology, but you need a lot of boring administration for it to work!

Nobody creating these things actually cares if they will be widely used. They know that their target audience will use it. That target audience can afford the technology, and would rather escape us plebs on terra firma whenever possible.

To have something for rich people to do/buy before they all get eaten by everyone else.

Exactly! Well said. It’s a total waste.

Safety. You can lose several props or motors and still fly. I think the efficiency factors are changing as well with AI assisted design.

Look up NASA’s DEP “Distributed Electric Propulsion” work by Mark Moore on this. Surprisingly, it’s more efficient to have many small rotors than one big one.

I guess the safety factor is not necessarily true with a Quadra copter. You could only lose one (or two depending on which ones you lose) and still fly, but with six or more props, your safety improves

@@charlesnichols8738 That may be true. I guess I was only thinking about a quadcopter with 5 inch props compared to a quadcopter with 7 inch props. I wasn't thinking about the more motors and that more motors with smaller props can be smaller motors.

Joby’s aircraft has a range of 150 miles on a single charge. Once passengers are dropped off at one location, the aircraft is charged for the next flight. I don’t see a problem here.

@@perry4207 Can it do that flight carrying a load? Most long flights with electric have been unmanned or sparsely loaded. To be competitive with general aviation, you need to be able haul 1000 pounds 700 miles or so. The very, very best batteries in the world right now are 0.3 J/Kg. Fossil fuels are 45 J/Kg, and the weight goes down as fuel is burned, whereas batteries must be hauled from point A to point B as well. Electric will be a great way to fly someday, but it's not going to happen by building better planes. It will happen when companies make a better, lighter energy storage device. You can make the coolest horse drawn carriage in the world, but without a horse you're not going to get very far.

@@ryanmcgowan3061 Joby’s market is for an air taxi service for people wanting to skip over congested traffic. The majority of flights would be similar to how people use Uber. I’m guessing there will be lots of trips to airports which would require luggage though. Testing with extra weight has not been released yet. The typical flight is probably in the range of 20-50 miles, so it should not be a problem to add luggage for 4 people.

@@perry4207 By the time you get to a port and load up a plane, travel, deplane, and get on your way again, you could have drove those 50 miles. And that's without a reserve. You really need something like 400 miles to be practical. At 50 mile range, you're competing with mopeds, not cars. Currently, if you have a 2-seat Cessna with 2 adults on board and enough fuel to go only 200 miles, you need about 130 pounds of fuel, without any reserve. The equivalent amount of LiPo battery is *19,500 pounds.* That is a problem that needs to be solved no matter what.

@@ryanmcgowan3061 It is going to depend on where passengers are located in relation to the vertiports. It should be the same convenience as a helicopter but cost much less money. A Cessna would certainly be too expensive to be practical. Deplaning would only take a couple of minutes since there are only 4 seats. It’s not like unloading a 200 seat airliner. I believe this can be a niche market that many people will use. Everyone will have to decide for themselves if the price is worth it. $3-$4 per mile seems like a fair price if you can save a lot of driving.

Nah

@@JohnWick-qr4yc you can't prove that!

From high speed car crashes?

@@supenole Dead of old age. If all cars drive themselves we won't have many car crashes anymore.

Probably 100mph+, but only on the highways between cities.. unless you get way more people in the same amount of space, autopilot cars will not solve the congestion issue inside cities. There will never be enough roadway to carry people.

@@ribstogo12 Automated cars would get through traffic lights or intersections a lot faster and more efficiently than they do with human drivers. In fact, there probably wouldn't be any need for traffic lights anymore. In congested cities we aren't going to have aircraft flying around and making things any less congested. The design of cities would have to change. Spread out more.

@@CarbonGlassMan You'll still need traffic lights for pedestrians, cyclists, other types of transportation. Regardless, you mention cities having to spread out more. Look at Houston. It's sprawl is massive. Its one of the most spread out cities and has terrible congestion. With more sprawl, more people need to use cars, and the longer the drive is. Though I agree on eVTOLs... no way that's going to rid us of ground traffic.

No minutes so hope you ain't to high up when it runs out.😅🤣

I wonder if, like modern consumer drones, the motors on these things are independent of each other so failure of one motor won't compromise the flight or its safety. .

@@kamuelalee Yeah the Joby crashed as they said in the video. I cant see a million of these things flying above roads. Accident or failure would be catastrophic. I think these would be great, just not flying over me, en mass, while Im on the road

@@kamuelalee Have you seen this one? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-FzhREYOK0oo.html

@@kamuelalee Until the computer fails or power inexplicably cuts out, then down it goes. That's already an issue with consumer drones. Not overly common, but happens. In theory, the wing design may allow for glide, but not sure if it's stable. Even if it is, separate emergency backup power will be essential to better maintain control and to land. I believe these issues can be worked out, but likely won't until after many crashes and deaths. Hope it doesn't play out that way.

@@AxxinTheSupernova Well, as they said in the video, they're flying these over unpopulated areas. It will take time but eVTOL will happen eventually.

True, but innovation was always a gimmick at first. Just look at the development of the car. It was thought to be a gimmick at first and eventually took the train and horses that looked down on it. Technology progresses with failures, not every idea is a golden ticket and as long as the innovation moves in the right direction, who are we to judge.

@@rickiex I’m judging that’s who. Someone with a lot of technical knowledge. 1000’s of “personal” flying drones are not a viable option in a crowded urban setting. They will have military applications, carny applications and “sport” applications. That’s about it. Unlike wheeled vehicles and roads.

@@mrsmartypants_1 you clearly don't read 😂 Im pretty sure I said and acknowledged that this man sized drone is a gimmick