Uber, Elevate
A quick note about flying taxis
Last week, Uber held a Summit to discuss and accelerate the development of its Elevate initiative. Their goal is to bring ‘on-demand, urban air transportation’ to the masses through the Uber platform, and they hope to do this with electric Vertical Take Off and Landing vehicles, not unlike e-Hang’s 184 Autonomous Aerial Vehicle. At the summit, they announced that they plan to begin testing in 2020 in Houston, TX.
Uber thinks an eVTOL taxi service would address a number of growing problems that are facing cities today. Namely, that it will reduce ground congestion, pollution, and travel time in sprawling urban areas like San Francisco, Seoul, and LA, where traffic and natural barriers can significantly increase travel times. For instance, in San Francisco this sort of solution would reduce a travel time between Marina and San Jose from nearly 2 hours, to around 15 minutes.
True, anything is possible with enough money, but Uber estimates it will cost roughly the same as a comparable UberX ride.When put this way it seems like a n0-brainer. Why spend $100 to sit in a car for hours, when you could get there much more quickly for the same price?
Some seemed to have just missed the point. Forbes wrote a lengthy article, claiming that the idea was comparable, if not less realistic than ‘something from the Jetsons’. Also, I am sure there were a few old-guard flying car ‘startups’ that saw Uber’s announcement as a new way to help them cozen more small time investors out of their hard-earned cash in exchange for empty promises.
However, I thought it was clear that the goal of the summit was to start a conversation. At least from the livestream, it seemed like the intention was not to overhype the idea and draw in dumb money, but instead to bring together the community who will need to be involved if this is ever going to happen, and outline the challenges that need to be overcome. Based on who was there (VCs, regulators, researchers, politicians), and the content of the livestream, it seemed like they achieved their goal.
When Jawbone founder and VC, Alexander Asseily, spoke about his investment in Lilium (a personal aerial vehicle company), he echoed this sentiment; reiterating that investors should not change the criteria they use to evaluate companies
I don’t think they will. The problem with flying cars in the past has been that they just weren’t safe, practical, or economically viable for large scale use (commercial or otherwise), and yet people foolishly invested in them anyways becuase of hype and childhood dreams of flying their car to work. This most recent crop of Bay Area millionaires could just as easily fall victim to the same traps.
Of course, things are changing now. Thanks to advances in materials, batteries, and chip miniaturization, the economics of eVTOL urban transport are starting to make sense — believe it or not, you can pretty much build one of these things in your backyard. That, coupled with the advances in autonomy and navagation software that’s been proven on unmanned drones, greatly improves the practicality and safety piece.
So, rather than a groundswell of one time investors who’ve dreamed of flying to work, this new movement is supported by the same VCs who brought us Google, Facebook, and Uber. And they making calculated bets on the future, not just throwing money at a dream. If that’s not a signal that things have changed, I don’t know what is.
The hurdles going forward are mostly regulatory and software ones, so the next few years should be interesting in this space.
Disclosure: My statements and opinions are my own, and do not represent those of any organization with which I am associated.
Also I am by no means an authority on anything. I’m just a guy with a computer, so don’t take anything I say too seriously.
Lastly, I am new to this format of writing and want to improve, so any constructive feedback is appreciated!
