[nlawalker]

Yeah, what I'm not clear on is: what's the cost to fly from SF to Lake Tahoe in a helicopter? If it's a lot more than the $250 that Lilium is promising, what is it that makes Lilium cheaper? Is it just the up-front investment in scale and the route network?

[pdelbarba]

For an owner operator, an R22 and maybe an R44 would be able to do SF to Lake Tahoe for well under $250. For a charter service you could probably get a commercial operator to do it for maybe around ~$500 and there are definitely some inefficiencies you could remove there. Lilium is on crack if they actually think $250 is going to be the all in cost for a private flight though. You don't just spin up a new air frame and 135 operation and make money at those numbers...unless you pull an Uber on steroids and open the VC floodgates...

[nradov]

The R44 has a tiny cargo capacity. It's not really viable for a family of 4 that want to bring skis with them.

[looping__lui]

Unrealistic business plan estimations not factoring in the true costs of operating an aerial vehicle...

It’s a bit like “soon to be plane owners” that don’t quite pay attention when they are told the spark plug for their Cessna is 50USD, they need 8 for 4 cylinders and replace them rather frequently ;-)

Changes when they realize that those companies chartering out planes for less than 200 USD/h probably don’t make loads of cash but just keep track of actual expenses, have a high utilization and capable maintenance staff...

[wahern]

> It’s a bit like “soon to be plane owners” that don’t quite pay attention when they are told the spark plug for their Cessna is 50USD, they need 8 for 4 cylinders and replace them rather frequently ;-)

That's supposed to be the promise of electric aircraft: almost all serviceable parts go out the window, just as with electric cars. Construction and maintenance costs are reduced to a fraction of what they are for mechanical systems. And because these are VTOL, ground expenses are likewise reduced.

Batteries are still rather expensive, though, and energy density sucks. The advantages may not be able to compensate, at least not sufficiently to hit a price point that appeals to a wider, non-millionaire market.

[looping__lui]

Ok, the only certified batteries you can install in a Cessna is like 500 USD and it literally dies after 2 years of (not heavy) usage. It’s worse and less sophisticated that your 50 USD car battery.

I don’t want to sound like an aviation cynic, but for pilots (even in the non-commercial sector) spending 50 USD for a spark plug or 500 USD for a battery is “normal”.

Tiny bit of innovation and disruption = very very expensive in aviation.

[AtlasBarfed]

Some israeli startup is doing replaceable aluminum air batteries. Also there are probably low-cycle solid state lithium designs that can start to approach the needed density, it would take a really good recycling loop though.

[asdfadsfgfdda]

A medium helicopter charter might be $1200/hour, SF to Tahoe is ~130 nm, so ~1.5 hours each way.

Of that $1200/hr, $150/hr is fuel, $50/hr is engine maintenance, and maybe $100/hr airframe maintenance. These scale linearly with time. For fixed costs, a new helicopter is ~$3 million, so figure $300k per year in depreciation, taxes, insurance, and finance costs. Add another $150k/year for pilot salary and training. If you find lots of customers and keep the helicopter busy, say 1000 hours a year, there's $450 an hour for fixed costs.

The real key to reducing costs is increasing utilization, this keeps the fixed costs reasonable. Batteries and motor will likely improve fuel+engine cost, but also hurt utilization because charging takes more time than refueling. A large network improves utilization. But building a network, with various types of demand (leisure on weekends, business commute during weekdays, cargo during off-peak periods?), is the real challenge.