61–70 of 89 posts
This is pretty much everything you need to know about Toyota - everything you need to know about corporate Japan - wrapped up neatly in one anecdote. Toyota can’t make a plug-in electric car to save themselves but for white elephants like flying cars and smart cities they are all in.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not OP, but I'm guessing their point is that Toyota has completely missed the boat on electrification where they had an early lead with the Prius. They went after shiny unrealistic options like Fuel Cells/Hydrogen and wasted their lead. The world would have looked very different now if they had invested in Electric 10 years ago. Their "plug-in" electrics have 20-40 miles of all electric range. Even Ford has vehicles…
I find it very interesting how stubbornly Toyota is sticking to hydrogen/fuel cells. The rest of the market seems to have accepted that the big downsides of hydrogen based solutions (need for extensive transport + storage infrastructure, difficult containment, horrible end to end efficiency, ...) make batteries the better solution. Tesla seems bound to demonstrate that even semis are already viable with current techn…
Japan (and China, Europe and other regions) are investing in hydrogren based mobility. Japan has a bit over 100 fuel cell stations right now, and aims for over 300 stations and 200k vehicles in 5 years. [0] Toyota is one of the companies creating both the stations and also hydrogen based vehicles. They also sold about 3k of their hydrogen-based Mirai cars [2].
German company Bosch only started hydrogen fuel cell production in 2019 [1].
This is all very miniscule compared to the electic cars of today, but a hydrogen economy has a few important advantages, IMO the most important one is that hydrogen production can occur at times when energy is in abundance, which gets more and more important with rewewables based energy networks. Vehicles can also be fueled just as fast as ICE vehicles today, and hydrogen has much higher energy density than current battery technology.
From a strategic POV it makes sense for countries to look at hydrogen.
[0] https://www.airliquide.com/magazine/energy-transition/hydrog...
[1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/15/business/corpor...
[2] https://www.hindustantimes.com/autos/toyota-nissan-honda-amo...
There are a lot of companies working on "flying taxis". All of those seem to have a large footprint with lots of rotors, meaning they will need dedicated landing/take off zones. This seems to limit their usability a lot, turning them more into a short range point to point helicopter service. Not to mention the noise pollution. Those things are all loud. Combine that with limited speed and range, and I just don't see…
Rotor size matters a lot for noise and how far it carries. Compared to a helicopter these things are going to be a lot less noisy. Also there's a difference between landing/taking off and cruise. Several of these designs have wings and a vtol configuration. There's no shortage of roof tops, open areas, etc. that could be converted to land on. As soon as viable products hit the market they'll be very popular. Finally,…
By "energy cost" do you mean something like "the price of a cup of coffee spent on electricity"? That seems surprisingly efficient but maybe here (Europe) the coffee is cheaper and the electricity dearer - what's the figure in kWh?
There are a lot of companies working on "flying taxis". All of those seem to have a large footprint with lots of rotors, meaning they will need dedicated landing/take off zones. This seems to limit their usability a lot, turning them more into a short range point to point helicopter service. Not to mention the noise pollution. Those things are all loud. Combine that with limited speed and range, and I just don't see…
Rotor size matters a lot for noise and how far it carries. Compared to a helicopter these things are going to be a lot less noisy. Also there's a difference between landing/taking off and cruise. Several of these designs have wings and a vtol configuration. There's no shortage of roof tops, open areas, etc. that could be converted to land on. As soon as viable products hit the market they'll be very popular. Finally,…
There have to be rules where those taxis can start, land, in what direction, time frames and over which places in a city. You need some kind of air control and "traffic rules". Drivers need regulated training in simulators and there need to be emergency procedures.
I believe that in the first few years such things won't be allowed near towns and cities. There will be similar rules like flying drones [1], but a lot stricter.
And the time saved by such travel will probably decrease when the sky starts looking like in the 5th Element [2].
[1] https://uavcoach.com/drone-laws-in-switzerland/ [2] https://media.giphy.com/media/Bs2pZhpxf2168/giphy.gif
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They said the same about doctors, and yet heart surgery is done by real people. All your NNs are entirely completely utterly pointless when faced with inputs they have never been trained on. They always suck at extrapolating, and almost always suck at interpolating as well. So when an unexpected emergency happens, what exactly are they going to do? And outside of NNs, The only thing we have are autopilots. They somet…
Just an FYI, planes already regularly fly by themselves. Auto landing has even been around since the late 60's.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rotor size matters a lot for noise and how far it carries. Compared to a helicopter these things are going to be a lot less noisy. Also there's a difference between landing/taking off and cruise. Several of these designs have wings and a vtol configuration. There's no shortage of roof tops, open areas, etc. that could be converted to land on. As soon as viable products hit the market they'll be very popular. Finally,…
> travel 40-50m quickly for about the energy cost of a cup of coffee By "energy cost" do you mean something like "the price of a cup of coffee spent on electricity"? That seems surprisingly efficient but maybe here (Europe) the coffee is cheaper and the electricity dearer - what's the figure in kWh?
By the time these things start flying at scale, the coffee will be way more expensive than the energy cost. That's why most of these companies are investing in autonomous flight as well because short term that is going to be the cost bottleneck (that and training the army of pilots that they'd need).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would hydrogen make more sense?
On a simplistic level, the energy density of hydrogen is far greater than chemical batteries. Less weight to carry the same amount of energy. This is more complex than I summarised, containing hydrogen effectively being one issue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rotor size matters a lot for noise and how far it carries. Compared to a helicopter these things are going to be a lot less noisy. Also there's a difference between landing/taking off and cruise. Several of these designs have wings and a vtol configuration. There's no shortage of roof tops, open areas, etc. that could be converted to land on. As soon as viable products hit the market they'll be very popular. Finally,…
Even if this will be economically viable, the regulations around it could be so harsh that the idea could not take off. There have to be rules where those taxis can start, land, in what direction, time frames and over which places in a city. You need some kind of air control and "traffic rules". Drivers need regulated training in simulators and there need to be emergency procedures. I believe that in the first few ye…
Short term, these things will mean helicopters that currently service rooftops in many cities will be replaced by slightly more of these things flown by professional pilots that will have increasingly less to do as these things start flying themselves. I also expect an increase in heliports. E.g. Manhattan only has a few right now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rotor size matters a lot for noise and how far it carries. Compared to a helicopter these things are going to be a lot less noisy. Also there's a difference between landing/taking off and cruise. Several of these designs have wings and a vtol configuration. There's no shortage of roof tops, open areas, etc. that could be converted to land on. As soon as viable products hit the market they'll be very popular. Finally,…
Even if this will be economically viable, the regulations around it could be so harsh that the idea could not take off. There have to be rules where those taxis can start, land, in what direction, time frames and over which places in a city. You need some kind of air control and "traffic rules". Drivers need regulated training in simulators and there need to be emergency procedures. I believe that in the first few ye…
