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Uber Hires Veteran NASA Engineer to Develop Flying Cars

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Re: Uber Hires Veteran NASA Engineer to Develop Flying Cars

#11

Post by jayjay71 »

iaw wrote: post #9
jayjay71 wrote: post #4

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.

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.

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.

Re: Uber Hires Veteran NASA Engineer to Develop Flying Cars

#12

Post by _red »

aetherson wrote: post #3

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.

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.

Re: Uber Hires Veteran NASA Engineer to Develop Flying Cars

#13

Post by iaw »

jayjay71 wrote: post #11
iaw wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

Re: Uber Hires Veteran NASA Engineer to Develop Flying Cars

#14

Post by nether »

iaw wrote: post #5

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…

> 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.

That only ensures that flying cars will always be more expensive than ground cars, not that per capita income will always be too low to have mass adoption of flying cars.

Re: Uber Hires Veteran NASA Engineer to Develop Flying Cars

#16

Post by EJTH »

iaw wrote: post #5

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…

Tell that to all the Chinese companies that are in the midst of marketing hexacopters for city transportation...

Re: Uber Hires Veteran NASA Engineer to Develop Flying Cars

#17

Post by creeble »

spraak wrote: post #7

This could have equally been an article on the Onion

Funnier on Bloomberg! Sort of. I guess they don't do physics there.

I love the closing:

"Kalanick’s bet on Uber Elevate is another indication that while Silicon Valley seems on the surface to be consumed with politics and protests these days, the march into the future continues apace."

Yeah, okay. Oh Uber is based where?

Re: Uber Hires Veteran NASA Engineer to Develop Flying Cars

#18

Post by EJTH »

dexwiz wrote: post #6

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.

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.

Re: Uber Hires Veteran NASA Engineer to Develop Flying Cars

#19

Post by iaw »

jessriedel wrote: post #10
iaw wrote: post #5

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…

> 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. There are lots of technical roadblocks to feasible flying cars but the cost of the potential energy to change elevation is not one of them. The optimal altitude flown would be lower for shorter trips, and when normal cars must change elevat…

> The optimal altitude flown would be lower for shorter trips

Where does the column of flying cars go? Do they expand vertically or horizontally as traffic increases?

In the underpopulated area's of the US where 10% of the population lives this is a feasible mode of transit, what about the 90% that actually have traffic?

If the cars broaden vertically it's a safety risk, if the cars broaden horizontally it's a violation of property rights (and a different safety risk), if the cars don't broaden it rapidly becomes inefficient and dangerous.

Also, with the advent of KERS and other regenerative systems cars will be able to recapture the bulk of energy consumed for elevation changes. To my knowledge there's no such effective system for planes. So the efficiency on cars is still higher than air vehicles.

Re: Uber Hires Veteran NASA Engineer to Develop Flying Cars

#20

Post by jayjay71 »

iaw wrote: post #13
jayjay71 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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 sc…

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) they are already operating on highways with zero problems! The data is limited, but that is promising.

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