- Imagine traveling from San Francisco’s Marina to work in downtown San Jose—a drive that would normally occupy the better part of two hours—in only 15 minutes. What if you could save nearly four hours round-trip between São Paulo’s city center and the suburbs in Campinas? Or imagine reducing your 90-plus minute stop-and-go commute from Gurgaon to your office in central New Delhi to a mere six minutes.
On the other hand, the EHang 184 was approved for testing in Nevada this year. It carries one passenger, is battery powered, and claims a flight time of 23 minutes. That's far too short for useful commuting, but I wouldn't bet against energy tech continuing to improve.
Regulation will be a significant obstacle, but Uber hasn't been much deterred by existing laws which forbid their operations in many jurisdictions, as long as they are delivering a service customers value and not hurting anyone (except owners of million-dollar taxi medallions). I would expect the FAA to be a bit more contrarian, but it sounds like they are cooperating for now.
- The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is moving steadily ahead to safely integrate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into the largest, most complex air traffic systems in the world.
(1) they're basically proposing to reinvent the Moller Skycar in the next nine years, which has been in development since 1985 without so much as breaking ground effect.
(2) they're expecting to do it electrically, which underperforms the shit out of internal combustion. "But batteries are getting more efficient!" yeah. You make them more efficient by winding them tighter, which turns them into Galaxy Note 7s. There's a reason we're now drearily used to "batteries catch fire" stories whereas before it just wasn't a thing.
(3) they're acting as if the FAA is just going to let them. This is the organization that decided it needed to rule on drones and Uber thinks it can skate on tilt-rotors. Which the President isn't even allowed in they're so dangerous.
This isn't a bold business plan, this is Travis Kalanik pulling shit out of his ass and smearing it on a press release.