[kumarvvr]

We have gained so much in terms of technological progress, consistently reducing the energy required to go from point A to point B, it surprises me how we are again increasing it for getting from point A to point B.

The concept is great, but the push for mass market adoption bugs me.

These things are not efficient modes of transport. It takes a lot of energy to move one person from A to B.

[noduerme]

I agree. No one ever said waverunners were a practical form of transportation, but they still sell millions of them. This does look like a really fun personal toy, though. I can easy imagine some rich dudes taking them for Endor-style races through the forest up here.

[tweedledee]

That would involve Endor-style crashes, it would be insanely dangerous. Flying FPV drones gives much of the same feeling without the all the death.

[noduerme]

I live in a forest between a river and a winding road... I see people do craaazy shit all the time, from death races in expensive sports cars on the road to wave running way too close to the dock to loading paintball guns with ball bearings and shooting them in the woods; and I'm telling you it's not if someone does an Endor race with this thing, it's when.

[anonporridge]

You can also take gondolas to the top of mountains, but people still climb them, putting themselves in unnecessary risk of death for the same views.

There will always be some subset of people willing to do crazy dangerous things when similar safe alternates exist.

And I for one am excited to see the race footage.

[tweedledee]

I've flown FPV drones through forests, it's insane. The reaction speeds needed are crazy. It is almost impossible to last a day without crashing. I'm sure there are lots of fun things to do with it, but Endor style races is not one of them. The people willing to do things that crazy don't last very long.

[anonporridge]

You could say the same thing about free solo climbing.

Yet people still do it (and regularly die) and keep pushing the limits of what we thought was possible.

[tweedledee]

I am aware crazy people do exist. It's a matter of degree and I would suggest that flying this thought a forest Endor style would be far more dangerous than free solo climbing.

[anonporridge]

Like a powered paraglider on steroids.

[ctvo]

> The concept is great, but the push for mass market adoption bugs me.

> These things are not efficient modes of transport. It takes a lot of energy to move one person from A to B.

Will you not entertain the possibility that a form of travel using geodesic distance may be more efficient? Going from Brooklyn to Manhattan and bypassing traffic, for example (a small body of water where flying across would be more efficient for those not familiar)? Or iterative improvements to it, if it gains adoption, would improve whatever numbers you're using for your energy requirements? Or that it may reduce our need to make new infrastructure, and that may also reduce energy costs?

There are a lot of things here to be so certain.

[anonporridge]

Mass use of flying cars is fundamentally infeasible on any realistic timescale for a huge list of reasons beyond energy inefficiency. Accidents are catastrophic. The noise would be insane. Minor body damage that wouldn't matter for a car could cause the whole thing to crash. You'd need a complex traffic control system that would never be allowed to miss a beat without risk a Kessler syndrome like event.

And in your water example, building a bridge would be drastically better for a high traffic use case.

In cases where you can't justify infrastructure build out, it will still be more efficient to use all terrain ground vehicles.

And no, hovering in the air and fighting gravity ever moment of active travel will never be anywhere close to the efficiency of a rolling vehicle.

[kumarvvr]

> Will you not entertain the possibility that a form of travel using geodesic distance may be more efficient?

I completely agree. But for mass market personal aerial vehicles, regulation would eventually force vehicles to fly close to ground (for safety of self and others, better fall 30 feet than 300 feet)

In this scenario, geodesic distance hardly makes any difference.

Personal aerial vehicles are never going to be safe. Not for the lack of innovation or technology, but for human nature. Ever see how many people drive their cars with the "check engine" lights on? Or how many fail to get theirs serviced in time, or change the oil in time? The mass market is not fit to drive their own personal aerial vehicles.

There are niche uses, such as medical emergencies, policing, etc. Putting these into the hands of everyone is a disaster waiting to happen.

[ctvo]

> Personal aerial vehicles are never going to be safe. Not for the lack of innovation or technology, but for human nature. Ever see how many people drive their cars with the "check engine" lights on? Or how many fail to get theirs serviced in time, or change the oil in time? The mass market is not fit to drive their own personal aerial vehicles.

> There are niche uses, such as medical emergencies, policing, etc. Putting these into the hands of everyone is a disaster waiting to happen.

Listing all of the things that could go wrong with a technology hasn't worked well for us. Imagine doing this exercise for the automobile. New infrastructure, a slip of the hand killing pedestrians, etc..

I acknowledge that there are many issues.

What I see:

The price point is reasonable enough that if there isn't regulatory enforcement, some employees at big tech will start flying these things along the water from downtown San Francisco to work / in-person meetings, saving them 2 hours a day. Convenience and time at this price point is very appealing to a certain demographic outside of any general nerding out over futuristic tech. The same conditions exist in New York City. If this is allowed to happen, this space is interesting, but of course, we're talking about ~20 vehicles over 2-4 years here.

[kumarvvr]

> Listing all of the things that could go wrong with a technology hasn't worked well for us

I am did not list anything wrong with the technology.

My point is that human nature itself is at fault. Would you trust a flying machine in the hands of a drunk driver? But, no amount of regulation / laws / punishment will deter such incidences.

[ctvo]

> My point is that human nature itself is at fault. Would you trust a flying machine in the hands of a drunk driver? But, no amount of regulation / laws / punishment will deter such incidences.

You're talking about degrees of damage. The issues presented here are present in cars. We've worked around them in cars (relatively well I'd argue) because of the trade-offs in convenience and time savings. There's nothing that says this mode of transaction, if viable, wouldn't have the same pressures applied to make it safer.

The wider point is convenience / time savings is a significant motivator, and betting against a technology that seems to include both has never turned out well.

[mattmaroon]

Those laws do a pretty good job of deterring such incidences with private pilots. Or perhaps more likely, the increased danger does.

If it became a real problem, it would be easy enough to do something like a mandate built in breathalyzers

[mattmaroon]

You obviously haven’t been to flight school. Altitude is safety. Once you were high enough up to kill you and or whatever you land on, further height doesn’t make you any more dead, but it does give you more time to work the problem.

This thing in particular has a parachute. I bet from 300 feet it doesnt have time to save you or let you glide to a spot without people under you, but from 3,000 feet it would.

[msla]

The way to make flying cars (and let's drop the sophisticated terminology, we're discussing something called Jetson One) safe for the mass market is to make them available as fleet vehicles for taxi companies such that you can ensure all the drivers are trained and sober and all the vehicles are maintained and inspected. Even if the hivemind insists they'll be self-flying, it's still unsafe beyond normal bounds of unsafe to have ill-maintained flying cars trying to navigate three-dimensional traffic.

[rbanffy]

Either that or automate the flight controls so much you effectively remove the human from the scene.

I can see a PAV that can’t be flown manually outside designated areas or a city where full automation is mandatory for all cars within its limits.

[antisthenes]

> We have gained so much in terms of technological progress, consistently reducing the energy required to go from point A to point B, it surprises me how we are again increasing it for getting from point A to point B.

It takes exactly the same amount of energy to go from point A to point B as it did 10,000 years ago.

What we've done is gotten better at packing more energy generation in a smaller volume/envelope.

[schoen]

> It takes exactly the same amount of energy to go from point A to point B as it did 10,000 years ago.

Only against conservative fields like gravity, not against friction! When I bike 10 blocks, I use less energy than when I walk 10 blocks.

[bullen]

At 100km/h this thing only has a roundtrip range of ~15km with the 20 minute onboard energy.

I'm not complaining about the vehicle to transported ratio though, it's about the same as my lead-acid e-bike: http://elhjul.se

[tdeck]

This comment makes me wonder if something like this could be supplemented with human power to extend its flight range.

[mkl]

Not enough to be useful, I think. The Jetson One has a maximum power output of 88kW, and a very fit human (e.g. elite sprint cyclist) can briefly reach up to 2.5kW (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8282832/#:~:tex....).

[nradov]

Elite cyclists can only hit 2.5kW for a few seconds. Sustained output for about 20 minutes will only be in the 0.4kW range, and regular people can't even do half of that.

[aero-glide2]

I don't want to just transport, i want to explore from high above.