Will Japan Have Flying Taxis by 2023? (ieee.org) 52
Slashdot reader damitr shared IEEE Spectrum's look at Japan's push for flying taxi services:
Last year, Spectrum reported on Japan's public-private initiative to create a new industry around electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles and flying cars. Last Friday [August 28th], start-up company SkyDrive Inc. demonstrated the progress made since then when it held a press conference to spotlight its prototype vehicle and show reporters a video taken three days earlier of the craft undergoing a piloted test flight in front of staff and investors...
In May, SkyDrive unveiled a drone for commercial use that is based on the same drive and power systems as the SD-03. Named the Cargo Drone, it's able to transport payloads of up to 30 kg and can be preprogrammed to fly autonomously or be piloted manually. It will be operated as a service by SkyDrive, starting at a minimum monthly rental charge of 380,000 yen ($3,600) that rises according to the purpose and frequency of use....
Tomohiro Fukuzawa, SkyDrive's CEO, established SkyDrive in 2018 after leaving Toyota Motor and working with Cartivator, a group of volunteer engineers interested in developing flying cars. SkyDrive now has a staff of fifty. Also in 2018, the Japanese government formed the Public-Private Conference for Air Mobility made up of private companies, universities, and government ministries. The stated aim was to make flying vehicles a reality by 2023... Fukuzawa is also targeting 2023 to begin taxi services (single passenger and pilot) in the Osaka Bay area, flying between locations like Kansai and Kobe airports and tourist attractions such as Universal Studios Japan. These flights will take less than ten minutes — a practical nod to the limitations of the battery energy storage system.
"What SkyDrive is proposing is entirely do-able," says Steve Wright, Senior Research Fellow in Avionics and Aircraft Systems at the University of West England. "Almost all rotor-only electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles projects are limited to sub-30-minute endurance, which, with safety reserves, equate to about 10 to 20 minutes flying."
In May, SkyDrive unveiled a drone for commercial use that is based on the same drive and power systems as the SD-03. Named the Cargo Drone, it's able to transport payloads of up to 30 kg and can be preprogrammed to fly autonomously or be piloted manually. It will be operated as a service by SkyDrive, starting at a minimum monthly rental charge of 380,000 yen ($3,600) that rises according to the purpose and frequency of use....
Tomohiro Fukuzawa, SkyDrive's CEO, established SkyDrive in 2018 after leaving Toyota Motor and working with Cartivator, a group of volunteer engineers interested in developing flying cars. SkyDrive now has a staff of fifty. Also in 2018, the Japanese government formed the Public-Private Conference for Air Mobility made up of private companies, universities, and government ministries. The stated aim was to make flying vehicles a reality by 2023... Fukuzawa is also targeting 2023 to begin taxi services (single passenger and pilot) in the Osaka Bay area, flying between locations like Kansai and Kobe airports and tourist attractions such as Universal Studios Japan. These flights will take less than ten minutes — a practical nod to the limitations of the battery energy storage system.
"What SkyDrive is proposing is entirely do-able," says Steve Wright, Senior Research Fellow in Avionics and Aircraft Systems at the University of West England. "Almost all rotor-only electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles projects are limited to sub-30-minute endurance, which, with safety reserves, equate to about 10 to 20 minutes flying."
Will Japan Have Flying Taxis by 2023? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
That's just the default answer to a headline question. +5 for insight. -1 for originality.
Re: (Score:3)
Flying taxis?
Why not? Helicopters fly, and they can be hired as taxis, if the laws allow it. Actually, I won't be surprised if Japan already has them. Yup. AirX, Jet Team Shuttle Service, etc.
Now, if the question is whether it will have vertical takeoff vehicle which can land and drive on a normal street, fit in a normal parking spot, fly with more than one passenger for more than 10mn, etc. then the answer is "Of course not."
Re: (Score:2)
They are talking about doing airport to airport flights, so noise might not be an issue. Cost is more likely to be the problem.
Say you are a C level exec who wants to go from airport to airport. Do you want to handle your own luggage as well? Anyway you get there in 10 minutes, now what? The flight is going to be scheduled for all the people transferring by train or bus so you can hang around in the lounge waiting for them. Or you could have just got a normal taxi and travelled in quiet comfort while using
Re: (Score:2)
Your luggage will go by courier service, and can catch up to you. If there's enough of you, you'll have your own class of lounge and your own flight at the other end, too. This might be one of the cases where it would actually work.
I'd personally rather just have my own fancy class of car on a high speed train, though. That seems fast enough.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd personally rather just have my own fancy class of car on a high speed train, though.
Sure. But there is a big problem with high-speed trains going between airports: They don't exist.
Narita to Haneda takes over an hour by shuttle and nearly two hours by train, and then you need to go through security when you get there.
There is no available right-of-way for a faster train.
Deployment of a few quadrocopters is far more likely to happen. They can land inside the security perimeter.
airport to airport taxi service.. (Score:2)
airport to airport taxi service via helicopters is pretty old hat though.
if they can make it _cheap_ would be the thing, but I find that unlikely. so no.
also I find it unlikely that a facsimile of a car helicopter would be a more efficient configuration than a regular chopper.
Mid-air collisions (Score:1, Interesting)
Flying taxis aren't great (Score:4, Insightful)
It will be super noisy and very windy where they take off and land. Just like a helicopter. So you won't be getting picked up or dropped off at a regular street corner.
It might still be good in some special situations, but it won't be like a taxi.
Noise (Score:4, Interesting)
Only if (Score:2)
Bruce Willis gets to drive one.
Tourists Never Travel Alone (Score:1)
This will be worthless for tourists. One passenger and the piolt means tourists will have to separate from their travel companions to use it.
We've had flying cars for 84 years. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I agree that this is a helicopter, but theoretically a flying car would be different. It can be considered a flying car if it can fit in a normal parking spot, can drive on a single lane in 90% of roads and is quiet enough to be routinely used in most residential neighborhoods/
Re: (Score:2)
They said flying taxi, not flying car. Taxi is a function, not a class of vehicle. We already have air taxis. They do none of the flying car stuff. They have them in Japan, too. Therefore Japan already has flying taxis, and the answer to the question posed by the headline is "yes".
No. (Score:4, Insightful)
It might be that one flying taxi is possible, but the idea does not scale well.
Not only will cost-per-mile be stupidly high as both licensed pilots and aviation-grade maintenance techs are not cheap to employ, but even refuelling becomes an issue. It's all very well to say they'll be electric, but batteries can't compete in turn-around time. Every minute they're on the ground being refuelled/recharged or fettled, they're not paying for themselves.
Then you have a whole world of pain with air-traffic control as numbers rise.
And finally, MTBF is going to really hurt - the more there are flying, the more chance one fails. The idea of a few hundred kilos of burning lithium battery falling from the sky into a crowded city centre is not compelling...
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder what the flight time is. I'm guessing something between 5 and 20 minutes at most. That's not going to work as a taxi.
At 20 minutes it can make 10 minute trips to anywhere, or ~15 minute trips to anywhere near a charging/swap station. I would guess that getting 20 minutes requires more energy density than you can get without substantial fire danger, if not likelihood of combustion. i.e. no LiFePo4. And even those can burn, it's just harder to get them going.
Re: (Score:2)
It's all very well to say they'll be electric, but batteries can't compete in turn-around time. Every minute they're on the ground being refuelled/recharged or fettled, they're not paying for themselves.
While that's true, they're also dramatically cheaper to own and operate than liquid fueled planes. Even if you overhaul the motors on the same schedule, which you probably won't have to because they are so much more reliable, the overhaul is so much simpler that it will still be far cheaper to service four or eight (or however many) electric motors than one ICE or turbine used in a typical singlecopter. You also don't have to pay for aviation fuel, fuel storage, fuel storage permits, etc etc.
Batteries are like cargo just drop them ... (Score:2)
You should only set the batteries on the ground for recharging. You simply plugin a fully charged pack and the drone takes off. Compare that with the time to connect a refilling nosil and the disconnect time. Your time savings it the total time to pump fu
No (Score:3, Insightful)
No, for the same reason why we don't have commercial airplane travel at supersonic speeds: the time savings aren't worth the increased costs to most consumers.
Whenever you're airborne, you waste energy fighting the pull of gravity. While certain ways of remaining airborne are more efficient than others, in the end, it's still a waste of energy compared to land transportation. Economics have evolved to create certain markets for certain means of airborne travel, finding a balance between efficiency, time, and cost. But personalized airborne transportation is very inefficient, and -extremely- inefficient when it's on-demand point-to-point. Airborne taxi's will have an uphill battle with this fact when trying to find a way of commercializing this type of travel.
Re: (Score:2)
Some sort of lighter than air vehicle might make the economics better. But they would be quite large and have a lot of drag.
Any solution where any of these make sense would have to take off and land from a special terminal. Probably a tall tower to keep from being a nuisance to people on the ground.
And then there's the weather.
Re: (Score:2)
No, for the same reason why we don't have commercial airplane travel at supersonic speeds: the time savings aren't worth the increased costs to most consumers.
But the economics don't have to make sense for most consumers. There just needs to be enough of a market to make a profit. That's why the Concorde was profitable until safety became an issue. There are definitely many people with more money than you or me who will pay a lot of money to save time.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree with most of what you say, but drag at 10000 is so negligible that fuel efficiency is better than for a car. Doesn't fill the taxi niche though.
Re: (Score:2)
Whenever you're airborne, you waste energy fighting the pull of gravity. ... Airborne taxi's will have an uphill battle with this fact
I see what you did there :D
No (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I have flown on some Cessna flights in urban areas and traffic control seems quite an issue. You're constantly in contact with the tower and looking out for other traffic coming close. This was over a city of 600k with perhaps half a dozen of small aircraft in the air. It's hard to see how this would scale to anything near real traffic numbers.
Unless of course, these aircraft would fly themselves and be controlled by a central traffic computer.
What are they hiding?? They are evil! (Score:1)
Why won't they let us hear these contraptions without the horrible music?? The second video had no audio at all. Bad people!
Chop chop here goes the heads... (Score:2)
No. (Score:2)
Not unless everyone in Japan goes deaf due to a COVID-19 version update.
There is no way in hell that "flying car" is going to be acceptible .. it's loud, it doesn't fit in a parking lot. It's not a flying car, it's a very inefficient helicopter. Seriously, a helicopter would be better suited.
Can't even run a payment service properly (Score:2)
so prepare for flying cars dropping out of the sky randomly.
http://www.asahi.com/ajw/artic... [asahi.com]
So we finally get flying cars... (Score:3)
no, won't happen (Score:2)
Given our current tech: Sure hope not! (Score:2)
If we ever solve the riddle of gravity and can build gravity polarizers, on the other hand? That might be safer. It'd also enable them to be VTOL into normal parki
Let me be the first to say "Yes". (Score:2)
I don't think they'll happen in a big way, but I would be very surprised if you didn't see Robot Taxis in Tokyo around that time.
The big reason is that there is so much money going into Urban Air Mobility vehicles that somebody is going to push one being operational at that time to demonstrate to investors that the concept is feasible.
When I look at the comments here, it seems like people seem to think that the robot taxis will litter the skies like in "The Fifth Element" but I can see there being a small f
We already have them (Score:2)
https://www.linearair.com/why-... [linearair.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The real question is, will air taxis be cheap enough for regular people to afford them, and will they be able to pick you up at your house, instead of making you go to the airport.
My guess is that these new "air taxis" won't be cheap.
Re: (Score:2)
They won't be able to pick you up at your house unless your house has a helipad.
But they will be able to pick people up off the tops of some tall buildings, and people might live in those buildings, so the answer is yes for some people.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not at all clear that these new "air taxis" will be able to land anywhere that a helicopter can't land. It's not just the physical capability, but FAA rules and regulations, that have to be considered.
Re: (Score:2)
Japanese air taxis don't need to follow FAA regulations. Presumably Japan has its own aviation authority. Perhaps they will permit multicopters to land in more places than helis, perhaps not.
Japan is ideal for flying taxis (Score:2)
As such, an air taxi service that can do 20 km point-to-point journeys in a short time could find a big market.
Slice and Dice (Score:2)
Wow, the 8 pedestrian-slicing propellers look very effective. Nothing scary about those things whatsoever.
On the upside, they're saving weight by not putting on safety shrouds, though.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe. (Score:2)
Pretty sure Japan has Heli Taxis already (Score:2)
Good news hopefully (Score:2)
Piloted taxi drones, maybe (Score:2)
SD-03? (Score:2)
Wake me up when they get the SDF-01
May be worth it . . . . (Score:2)
Midtown Manhattan to JFK: over an hour via AirTrain+subway. Maybe just a tad quicker using LIRR if the planets align right. By taxi: maybe 45-ish minutes if your're VERY lucky but could just as easily be 2 hours or more. Other airports are also about an hour away best case, and sometimes more.
Most of Tokyo to Narita . . . most really big cities to their principal airports . . . . similar.
JFK via helicopter? About 8-10 minutes.
And some people's time is worth many times more than the cost of that helicop