[scottLobster]

We have these things called helicopters, they are already made small enough for single occupants and have been for decades. Making them electric and automated doesn't make them less of a helicopter with all of the issues of existing helicopters.

For instance, I will never have any desire to risk the air traffic clusterfuck of hundreds of EVTOLs with different computers from different brands with different levels of maintenance trying to land/take-off in a Costco parking lot to grab a rotisserie chicken on their way home from work.

It isn't a technology problem. EVTOL only makes sense where helicopters currently make sense.

[OisinMoran]

Your last sentence is simply not true. Helicopters are massive in terms of volume and weight, and incredibly loud. You're also assuming our current layout of everything would stay the same. Imagine if teleportation existed, do you think cities, towns, and suburbs would still look the same?

A collision is less likely in 3D than in 2D, and obviously the chicken would be delivered to you via drone rather than the inverse.

[scottLobster]

EVTOL isn't exactly quiet either. It will annoy the living shit out of your neighbors, particularly if everyone is doing it. Houses/apartments near airports are already cheaper for that reason.

And sure you can contrive whatever clean-slate sci-fi setting you want to try and make it make sense, but we aren't going to be ripping up existing infrastructure for it. This isn't Popular Science cover art.

Collisions are more likely if there's hundreds going to/from the same place at the same time, and also they can just fail and fall out of the sky onto dwellings, roads and businesses in ways that cars can't.

Your vision will be killed politically the first time a child playing on their swing-set or shopping with their mother or driving down the road is killed by a poorly maintained EVTOL.

[empath75]

I would think the most likely use for evtol (assuming, for the sake of argument, that whatever sci-fi technology needs to be invented will be invented to make it cost effective) is autopilot flights that are currently long commutes with a lot of traffic -- ie: Suburbs to city center and back, or long cross suburb trips.

[scottLobster]

Autopilot with strictly regulated maintenance and no personal ownership is about the only way it works, assuming your neighbors don't care about the noise

[Groxx]

Multiple smaller rotors does seem to have a powerful simplifying ability due to redundancy and the much better responsiveness it offers.

Generally though I agree with you. Plus it will always use WAY more power than a wheeled vehicle, and have much worse failures.

[scottLobster]

Yeah, they're definitely better helicopters than what came before depending on what you want out of the vehicle, but helicopters nonetheless.

[simmerup]

Electric helicopters come with the advantage that they’re much simpler to maintain surely.

[scottLobster]

Go watch some of these and tell me you trust these people to maintain an EVTOL vehicle, however simple.

https://www.youtube.com/@mechanicalnightmare/videos

We already have fatal car crashes from people who neglect maintenance and don't get their car inspected. Now imagine instead of a 2D plane to cause a wreck, on a road where people are generally alert and paying attention for wrecks, they can fall out of the sky onto kids playing in yards, onto busy roads out of the sun, or just onto each other during the final approach/take-off.

Nope, air travel is only safe because we strictly regulate pilots and maintenance.