
Uber Hires Veteran NASA Engineer to Develop Flying Cars - cookscar
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-06/uber-hires-veteran-nasa-engineer-to-develop-flying-cars
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aetherson
I feel this is additional evidence for my theory that Uber is in big trouble
and is trying to spin a bunch of pixie dust into some kind of dumb money exit
for its increasingly angry investors.

~~~
_red
The "self driving car" meme is petering out, so they are attempting to create
some hype in order to keep the Ponzi investment flows churning.

~~~
EthanHeilman
By which you mean, coming to fruition?

I'm not the biggest fan of Uber on a number of issues but I think the biggest
problem they have is that their investors were planning on having a monopoly
on livery. That is clearly not going to happen. Flying cars and self driving
cars are actually significantly more sound than their business model and are
much more likely to provide a decent ROI. If and when Uber runs out of steam
and its assets are liquidated the most valuable part will be research.

Lets check back on this in 10 years.

~~~
bduerst
Which could be true if Uber's self driving car project lasted longer than a
week. Other companies have already logged tens of thousands of road hours into
their self-driving car research.

At this point, it seems more like these announcements into researching more
solid business models are a red herring, like the previous commenter said. You
don't need to see the end product to know if progress is being made.

~~~
EthanHeilman
They did hire some of the top self-driving car (can we call them autocars?)
researchers.

>"these announcements into researching more solid business models are a red
herring"

My view is that they are attempting to develop a more solid business model.
Why wouldn't they try? Even if they fail to turn it into business it creates
value that can sell to the companies that do succeed. Besides if they need a
shiney for their investors, faking it seems to be just as much work as
actually doing it.

------
iaw
This strikes me as pretty pathetic effort by Uber to make itself appear
forward looking

Flying is not a valid commute solution and never will be because of physics.
All things equal, the energy requirements to change elevation will be too
great to justify adoption.

The system only becomes useful/safe if you "stack" vehicles on roadways. What
happens when one has a failure and crashes?

This is either market signaling or another thing Uber will bleed money onto.

~~~
ordinarySeeker
If we approach the problem from a perspective of "How to make flying a viable
commute option?" we can come up with atleast a few scenarios

1) Cities near water bodies like SFO, NYC, Miami or even Chicago can benefit
from over water flying cars. This provides some safety while making more areas
livable within a short commute to downtown.

2) Places like Mumbai, Bangalore where car ownership has outpaced the
governments ability to create roads causing massive traffic jams can be served
by a vertical stacking approach you mentioned and leap frog the western worlds
freeway model. By creating pre-defined paths in the air and having only
autonomous flying cars, the governments can save money on building roads,
parking etc and also provide a level of safety against rogue drivers and
airspace violation

~~~
bogomipz
> Cities near water bodies like SFO, NYC, Miami or even Chicago can benefit
> from over water flying cars"

I don't agree. While there may be less impediments to putting that traffic
over the waterways the challenges are still significant.

Just using NYC as an example:

A high density of bridges.

A High volume of existing commercial and passenger boat traffic.

A number of busy heliports are located along the waterways.

And although the rivers could help you navigate you up or downtown they
provide no efficient means of going across town further limiting this as a
viable option.

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ilamont
There's a flying car company, Terrafugia (1), that came out of MIT ten years
ago and they have working prototypes. There's an old YouTube video here (2)
and apparently they have "persuaded the FAA to grant Terrafugia a waiver of
weight and stall-speed limits so it can self-certify its Transition flying car
as a light sport aircraft" (3).

Not sure of the safety implications or the commercial viability of flying cars
for Uber, but there are people out there who want to be able to own or fly an
aircraft and not have to deal with various hassles that come with traditional
aircraft ownership.

1\. [https://www.terrafugia.com/](https://www.terrafugia.com/)

2\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnF2yua4KIw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnF2yua4KIw)

3\. [http://aviationweek.com/technology/faa-light-sport-
aircraft-...](http://aviationweek.com/technology/faa-light-sport-aircraft-
waiver-clears-way-transition-flying-car)

~~~
FabHK
Unfortunately, not really out in production yet, just like the amphibian Icon
A5 [1].

With aviation certification requirements, it takes huge amounts of time and
capital to get it from concept to prototype/first flight, and unfortunately
also from prototype/first flight to production and customers.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICON_A5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICON_A5)

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lutusp
Projects like this will eventually produce an airborne commuter vehicle, but:

* It will resemble a scaled-up quadcopter (for which there's already an early prototype: [http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/8/11882458/ehang-passenger-qu...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/8/11882458/ehang-passenger-quadcopter-test-flights-nevada))

* It will only happen when batteries are much better than they are now -- more energy density, longer lived, more efficient.

The bottom line is that this idea, like so many around us, is waiting for
decent batteries to be invented.

~~~
FabHK
I don't quite get that the eHang commands such a presence in the public mind.
With the rotors where they are, it looks almost designed to maim and cripple
passengers and bystanders.

The Volocopter, by way of contrast, has the rotors above the cockpit, has 18
rotors for redundancy, and is actually already flying for both unmanned and
manned test flights, with preliminary approval by German authorities. In my
view, it's a more sensible concept that's also further advanced already.

[http://volocopter.com/](http://volocopter.com/)

~~~
lutusp
> I don't quite get that the eHang commands such a presence in the public
> mind.

I think it's only because they're the first, their craft is really a rough
prototype, and in five years they'll likely be forgotten.

> With the rotors where they are, it looks almost designed to maim and cripple
> passengers and bystanders.

That's my reason for thinking they're engineers who aren't thinking of the
needs and vulnerabilities of end users -- they aren't really thinking about
end-user issues.

> The Volocopter, by way of contrast ...

* Much safer design, better protection against any single-point failure (the eHang can't afford to lose even one of its props and remain controllable).

* But soo ugly. :)

To me, the first large quad with protective shields around its props will
signal a level of seriousness consistent with the supposed goal (end-user
acceptance, non-prototype).

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jayjay71
When does Uber run out of money? I think the timeline on their R&D projects is
longer than their runway, and I'm not sure how many more people would be
willing to write Uber a 10 digit check.

~~~
iaw
They've raised _a lot_ of money in the last 18 months (likely in anticipation
of an evolving financial environment) so I suspect they actually have a couple
years left if they're careful.

It's like they're stumbling forward blindly hoping that at some point their
books balance.

~~~
jayjay71
I also forgot they bought Otto. I think self-driving cars are a long way away,
but I believe self-driving trucks could potentially be viable in a few years -
and the market is _massive_. Maybe they can commercialize that soon enough to
save themselves. Apart from the technology though, I'm sure the regulations
(something Uber loves) and customer relations could be a tough nut to crack.

~~~
iaw
You are completely right. Shipping automation has a lot of potential.

I don't think Uber has any strong competitive advantage in the self-driving
space relative to all of the other players. I've been wrong about these things
before. The thing that may put them at a disadvantage is their history of
ignoring regulations compared to companies like Google. Even if they develop
the technology quickly enough they may be screwed because a competitive
technology is the one that gets licensed by the DOT because other companies
play by the rules.

~~~
jayjay71
I'm biased because I used to work with many of the people Uber hired for self-
driving cars, but they bought _really_ great engineering talent. Great talent
doesn't mean much though if the management is bad, and after their whole
illegal testing in California debacle it makes me cautious.

That said, I didn't realize just how far ahead Google/Waymo is with regards to
self-driving cars. If you check out the report of autonomous vehicles (HN
"discussion" here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13554796](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13554796))
they are already operating on highways with zero problems! The data is
limited, but that is promising.

~~~
iaw
> I'm biased because I used to work with many of the people Uber hired for
> self-driving cars, but they bought really great engineering talent

I think that's a fair perspective and I don't discount the capabilities and
talents of the people working at Uber, it's the people running Uber that I
don't believe are capable of steering the ship.

A friend of mine who has been an executive at a couple tech companies have
chatted about the "no grown-up" phenomenon. Essentially, you can have a ton of
super-talented people but if there isn't a 'grown-up' (irrespective of age)
providing the managerial/fiduciary discipline (think Steve Jobs and Elon Musk
as the epitome of this) then the challenges of running a successful business
will quickly outpace the efforts of the talented engineers working there.

The number of teams/engineers that unilaterally work on overlapping projects
or projects that don't serve any purpose can rapidly drown the needed forward
progress.

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amarka
I don't get it, is this hiring like a PR stunt?

I would thinking creating your own maps and autonomous driving platforms is
already fairly ambitious, but flying cars?

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aptwebapps
Rant: Since when did VTOL == 'flying car'? A flying car is a hybrid, dual-use
vehicle. Is a helicopter a flying car? A Harrier jet? VTOL would be great for
an actual flying car and it would be great for small, personal aircraft, but
that doesn't make an aircraft that has it a flying car.

~~~
FabHK
Absolutely. We need a new word for this new category of aircraft (like the
eHang, Volocopter, etc.), but "flying car" it is not.

I'm in favour of Personal Electric VTOL Aircraft, PEVA.

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spraak
This could have equally been an article on the Onion

~~~
fullshark
They are gonna hire this guy next to research Compost Fueled Cars:
[https://youtu.be/DkGMY63FF3Q](https://youtu.be/DkGMY63FF3Q)

~~~
spraak
Actually I remember an article from the local paper here (on Kaua'i) where
someone on the island had made just that.. though I think the compost was
making biofuel of some sort

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dexwiz
Flying cars of the 2010s seem striking similar to solar cars for the 1980s. A
few expensive prototypes here and there, some great pontificating from leading
engineers, but no serious consumer model.

~~~
EJTH
Depends... I think we are really close to have viable "flying cars" in the
form of electric or even hybrid gas-electric multirotors... Give it 5-10 years
Im sure we will begin to see multirotors being used for personal
transportation.

~~~
FabHK
Predicated on advances in battery tech. The rest is there, agreed.

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6stringmerc
Flying cars aren't the future. I think it's much more in Jetpacks. Once power
density is better than Jet-A, we'll be in business for some great options.

Probably dangerous as all get out, but that's part of the fun.

[https://medium.com/@6StringMerc/for-christmas-2016-i-give-
th...](https://medium.com/@6StringMerc/for-christmas-2016-i-give-the-world-
the-parawing-fcc63fb3c20d#.w6iatgr2j)

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thearn4
Interesting, I didn't realize Mark had resigned from LaRC. I'd be interested
to hear a more complete take on his opinions about NASA Aeronautics, because
he sounded a bit disillusioned.

The big caveat when comparing to industry efforts, of course, is that NASA
Aero, by design, is not an airline, or an airframe manufacturer, or a
regulator. It's an R&D outfit that still very much follows the structure of
its predecessor, NACA.

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tga
And this is why giving cruddy companies insane amounts of cash works out well
for humankind. Few sane companies would have been able to put significant
resources behind something like this without a solid lead in hand.

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FnuGk
I never understood the point of flying cars. Do we not already have those but
call them airplanes?

Flying cars seem infeasible to operate for the mass consumer as they (like
airplanes) require extensive training to operate safely.

~~~
snowwrestler
The idea is that they are self-driving flying cars, so consumers don't need
training.

While the physics of flight are more complex than driving, the environment is
far less complex (straight-line between points, few obstacles along the way).
Flight is better suited to automation, and in fact we already have very
reliable autopilots and computer-enhanced airplanes.

That said, I think the fuel costs of flying mean it will never be competitive
with driving, based on cost.

~~~
FnuGk
I still do not understand the difference between a flying car and an air
plane.

~~~
FabHK
Terrible name, indeed.

Flying car sort of implies:

* can fly and drive on the road.

While there are concepts along those lines (e.g. the Terrafugia
Transformation), that's not what this is about.

What distinguishes this new bred of aircraft is:

* VTOL, so not bound to a traditional airport

* simple control ("like a car"), so don't need a pilot. That distinguishes them from a helicopter, which is harder to fly than a fixed wing plane.

* maybe also autonomous flying and collision avoidance, so more like next-gen cars.

I find PEVA (personal electric VTOL aircraft) more descriptive.

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EJTH
Can we all please agree that if something is not designed for road use, it can
hardly be categorized as a car?

Im all for stuff like this, but "flying cars" implies something that is
practical as both a road vehicle and a flying contraption of sorts...

