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Transportation

GM Reveals Electric Van and Delves Into Flying Cars (cnbc.com) 34

Posted by BeauHD from the reimagining-the-future dept.
General Motors unveiled a new electric van and revealed potential plans to delve into flying cars, sending its stock soaring by as much as 8.8% to $48.95 a share. CNBC reports: The EV600 electric van is scheduled to go on sale later this year through a new commercial business unit of GM's called BrightDrop. The division is planning a full portfolio of electric products, not just vehicles, including a delivery pallet that was unveiled Tuesday. The potential foray into "personal air mobility" was announced as part of Cadillac's portfolio of luxury and EV vehicles. It included an autonomous shuttle and an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, or more commonly known as a flying car or air taxi.

Michael Simcoe, vice president of GM global design, said each concept reflected "the needs and wants of the passengers at a particular moment in time and GM's vision of the future of transportation." "This is a special moment for General Motors as we reimagine the future of personal transportation for the next five years and beyond," Simcoe said.

The flying vehicle is designed to hold one passenger and travel roughly 56 mph between rooftops and other urban destinations, according to the company. A GM spokeswoman confirmed GM has designed models of both autonomous concepts, but computer renderings were simulated during the presentation. She declined to provide other details. Despite uncertainties around personal air mobility, Morgan Stanley expects the autonomous urban aircraft market may be worth $1.5 trillion by 2040.
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GM Reveals Electric Van and Delves Into Flying Cars More

GM Reveals Electric Van and Delves Into Flying Cars

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  • It's the minivan from Full Throttle! (Score:3)

    by spiritplumber ( 1944222 ) on Tuesday January 12, 2021 @08:47PM (#60935748) Homepage
    It's the minivan from Full Throttle! No, really, look at it. https://fullthrottle.fandom.co... [fandom.com]

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by pavon ( 30274 )

      To be clear, the vehicle in the leading image for the article is just a concept for self-driving shuttle bus. The EV600 Van going into production is much more traditional looking.

      • The EV600 is a commercial van for businesses, with standing room inside and a roll-up door on the back. Cargo space is 600 cf.

        It is not a minivan for consumers.

        FedEx has already ordered 500.

        The range is 250 miles.

        It looks like a good product. I hope it is successful.

        BrightDrop EV600 [wikipedia.org]

        • The order potential for businesses on electric business vehicles is huge, whoever gets there first is going to make billions.

          The cost savings on these electric work vehicles is HUGE. Vastly offsetting any additional cost.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I'm surprised it has taken them this long to switch. In China as soon as large enough EV batteries became available businesses switched over rapidly. Taxis and busses were some of the first.

      • Those renders on the article look suspiciously like vehicles in the last season of Westworld.

  • Ford has ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Tuesday January 12, 2021 @08:54PM (#60935768)

    ... prior art [imcdb.org].

  • ... where we do not design products for stupid people.

    But raise people for powerful products.

    Because the former will breed only even dumber people, and degenerate us.
    While the latter will quickly filter them, and allow us to advance.

  • The flying vehicle is designed to hold one passenger and travel roughly 56 mph between rooftops and other urban destinations, according to the company.

    Uh, SimCopter One reporting heavy traffic...

    • Damn, I miss that game. It ran fine on systems 1/10 as powerful as modern PC's and was so much fun.

      Too bad nobody kept it up.

  • Fake flying car (Score:3)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Tuesday January 12, 2021 @11:20PM (#60936144)

    That's NOT a flying car, it's basically a glorified helicopter. It can't land fit in a parking spot. Being able to land or fit in a parking spot should be the minimum requirement of a flying car. If it requires a dedicate heliport they already failed. The point of a flying car is so that you can live outside the city and commute to places. If the thing can't even move on a street .. it means you need to basically rent or own dedicated heliport pad .. that'll require lots of infrastructure investment and time. I mean look how long it took to put supercharging stations .. and that's with Tesla selling hundreds of thousands of cars. How are there going to be heliports available everywhere without that sort of investment? It seriously needs to be roadable (fit in a parking spot and be drivable on streets.)

    • "It seriously needs to be roadable (fit in a parking spot and be drivable on streets.) "

        and have a Burroughs Continua device and 2 bathrooms

  • If the van can prove itself in a commercial capacity, beyond just a niche sector or some kind of green marketing campaign, then it will go a very very long way in ensuring that EVs become truly mainstream in the next 5 years. There are the charging logistics to get around, but beyond that I'm guessing the benefits are reduced maintenance, obviously cheaper to run, an improved driving experience and some kind of regulatory break from local government for reducing pollution. Business users will figure out if

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by shilly ( 142940 )

      TBH, I don't really understand how it's taking as long as it is. Many routes are way way way smaller than an EV van's range. Like 40miles per day for last mile deliveries* vs ranges of 120 miles minimum for something like an Nissan env200, so a charge overnight every other day is sufficient. So all you need is a depot that can provide 7kW outlets for half your fleet and you're golden. And there is a really huge benefit for both drivers and localities in having EVs for delivery because of the stop-start natu

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Shotgun ( 30919 )

        Everything you said, plus. . .

        -not only do you eliminate the idling, you get regenerative braking. It takes a LOT of energy to stop a truck and to get it moving again.
        -if you've ever seen the maintenance shop of a depot, you know how much dirty oil is on EVERYTHING. These trucks work under what the manufacturers consider to be extreme conditions. There is the used motor oil, worn brake rotors and pads (often, made of asbestos). And, anything involving diesel is just dirty. All that is going away.

  • 63 years ago, in 1957, Belgian comic book author Jules Demesmaeker imagined for Franquin the “Zorglumobile” flying car, which looks just like the GM proposal

    General exterior view of the Zorglumobile [googleusercontent.com]
    Good inside view of the cabin [plazzart.com] (one wonders what the rear-view mirror is for) as well as two others in flight, seen from below.

    • That’s a pretty visionary design, with those 4 fans producing lift. Most early flying car concepts had either folding wings or a helicopter rotor.

      BTW I didn’t know Franquin knew a real Demesmaeker. I remember the name as a character in his (very funny) comic Gaston Lagaffe; turns out that character was modelled (and named) after Jules’ father.

      • That’s a pretty visionary design, with those 4 fans producing lift. Most early flying car concepts had either folding wings or a helicopter rotor.

        I first read that comic when I was about 7 or 8... That flying car had quite an effect on me. Now imagine what I felt when the Moller Skycar [wikipedia.org] came about; it was almost the “Zorglumobile”, down to the red colour

    • Re:Funny (Score:4, Insightful)

      by fred911 ( 83970 ) on Wednesday January 13, 2021 @05:19AM (#60936956) Journal

      Those of us that grew up in the US, we had The Jetsons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] .

      George's flying car was a briefcase convertible https://www.welldonemarketing.... [welldonemarketing.com] .

      Realistically,''Morgan Stanley expects the autonomous urban aircraft market may be worth $1.5 trillion by 2040.''... Read... Morgan Stanley is over weighted in GM stock and has a vested interest in selling into any good news they are able to create for GM. For fucks sake, we can't even agree how to properly manage class G airspace for unmanned flight for UAVs. In 19 years I highly doubt anyone but airmen with certificates will be using airspace for normal transportation.

  • I love the technical and novelty aspects of the concept of personal flying vehicles - but as I've aged I see them as irresponsible, especially for single occupant, short-haul flights.

    Such an application consumes terrific resources in infrastructure, engineering effort, and per-use energy consumption.

    A typical eVTOL will use something like 200-500kW for one minute on takeoff and one minute on landing. Electric aircraft have no region, so even with the low 200kW, this is 6.7kW-hr consumed per flight cycle. Th

    • Think about that - that is roughly an entire US gallon of gasoline energy equivalent per flight, regardless of distance travelled. It takes a significant number of traditional cars in gridlock-traffic to consume that much energy.

      No, it doesn't. It does take a significant number of hybrids to use that much energy, though. They have auto start-stop and regen, so they're pretty efficient in traffic. Non-hybrids aren't; ICEs are only efficient when producing significant output.

      • Guess it depends on definition of "significant"; from what I've been able to find, ICE engines for light vehicles typically burn 1/7 to 1/5 a gallon per hour when idling, and that is indeed only for vehicles that don't have stop/start, and is an average which also includes trucks that burn a lot more.

  • cool.
    i know that folks would like to build a proof of concept of this air car.
    i hope they do.
    i hope it works.
    how much would it cost folks to buy

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