🚗 Car Talk - Issue #10 (on Flying Cars, VW's ID 3, Lyft)
Hi friends!
Tenth issue! We’re in the double-digits! The response, feedback, and encouragement I’ve received for Car Talk has been phenomenal. Keep telling me what you’d like to see more of, as well as rabbit holes I should go down!
Buckle up!
Flying Cars Will Soar.. Maybe..
Not a week goes by when eVTOL (“electric vertical take-off and landing”) vehicles - aka flying taxis - are in the news. Whether it’s an eVTOL startup raising money, or a government initiative to fast-track the flying car’s entry to market, I read these articles with amusement and go about my day. C'mon, flying cars do appeal to the 10-year old in all of us! Just this week, I learnt about two new developments in this space:
Tesla’s second largest shareholder invests $35 million in air taxi startup Lilium
Lazy headline aside, Baillie Gifford (investor in question) has benefited immensely from making early bets in novel mobility technologies and they’re looking for an encore by investing in a flying taxi company called Lilium. To catch you up - Lilium is aiming to innovate an eVTOL vehicle that can fly for 300 km at a top speed of 300 km/hr. 300 @ 300 has a nice ring to it, right?
For context, a 300 km flight could get you from your swanky office in the Financial District of San Francisco to your posh house overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Monterey in under an hour.
From the article:
The type of aircraft Lilium is developing is typically called a “flying car,” electric-powered, able to carry only a handful of passengers, and intended for short flights within a city or regionally.
Things to latch onto (promise this is relevant) - short flights + handful of passengers + lots of R&D money.
Lilium’s competitor - Kitty Hawk - has announced only a 100 mile range aircraft thus far.
South Korea to Speed up Commercialization of Urban Air Mobility by 2025
South Korea is aiming to pass a special law to commercialize urban air mobility (UAM) transport system ahead of other countries in the next five years.
The UAM services would provide a faster mode of transport than buses and subways.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (MOLIT) said that the government initially intends to start UAM services in the metropolitan Seoul area with one or two terminals by 2025.
The 2025 timeline is interesting - both South Korean and Lilium in the article above believe the tech will be ready around the same time frame. What’s also interesting is that the public sector is pushing for this; it is not some private sector pipe-dream.
www.koreatechtoday.com • Share
Okay, look, the premise of electric flying taxis is that they’ll solve traffic and congestion issues in an eco-friendly manner, as existing infrastructure doesn’t scale with growing riders. Beat the roads, take to the skies.
I got curious about the research that exists on eVTOLs outside of the Silicon Valley bubble. I uncovered two gems - one technical, one social - both very eye-opening.
In Nature, I came across an article titled “Role of Flying Cars in Sustainable Mobility”. It reports an analysis of primary energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of VTOLs vs. ground-based cars.
We find that for our base case with 100 km point-to-point trips, VTOL GHG emissions are 35% lower than internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs), but 28% higher than battery electric vehicles (BEVs).
I’ll let some graphs from the paper (very readable, by the way) do the talking:
With just ONE passenger, flying cars (VTOL) have much higher emission for short trips and are never at parity with battery electric vehicles.
Given the use case of eVTOLs will be flying taxis, here’s how it looks when we load the flying taxi with passengers:
Assuming a 100km long flight, flying taxis with 3 passengers just about break even with a battery electric car carrying 1.54 passengers.
There are many things you can question about the assumptions/ inputs feeding into the analysis, I, for one, didn’t like that they assumed a lower-than-normal MPGe for electric cars. But if the authors are to be believed, the study puts a kibosh on the “sustainable transport” aspect of flying cars.
The next article’s title gives away the thesis “Flying Cars Will Undermine Democracy and the Environment”. This is such a great article, I wish I had written it. I can offer no higher praise!
The article frames the issues of flying cars in a way that my Silicon Valley-centric mind hadn’t been able to comprehend:
Flying cars represent a political danger because they will allow wealthy elites to further opt out of common institutions and everyday experiences, deepening social segregation.
Yet, it’s hard to fashion a broad-based political project if the most sophisticated and powerful actors live in a parallel society decoupled from the problems in need of solutions.
I buy that. If the flying cars will only ferry 2-3 passengers at max, you bet these passengers will be the 1%. With fewer places to rub shoulders with the proletariat, their empathy for common issues and problems will diminish.
All around Twitter and LinkedIn recently, we’ve seen powerful corporations and the powerful majority tweeting out “I am listening, I am learning” and so on. If flying cars are pervasive, the rich will truly occupy a parallel society, leaving them fewer chances to experience a life that isn’t theirs.
The author also posits that flying cars will lead to even more sprawl and less dense land usage (not environmentally friendly) and generate housing developments in areas better left untouched (hey wouldn’t you like to live next to Yosemite and fly into Silicon Valley if you could?):
The technology also presents a significant environmental threat because it will unleash development of pristine lands heretofore unattractive because of the limitations of distance and travel time.
I could paste quote after quote from this amazing article, but this one cuts deep and is a mic-drop:
Flying cars are the mobility equivalent of trickle-down economics.
We know that traffic and congestion will worsen and needs to be addressed now. Based on existing research, the solution being put forth - flying taxis - will not solve the issue (at scale, anyway) and make matters worse in a number of different ways.
Perhaps the right answer is to invest in improving the land-based infrastructure we currently have, double-down on remote commuting, invest in virtual reality meeting solutions, or in the very least, commit zero public dollars to flying cars (hard to fathom as the FAA will have to get involved). Let just the 1% own flying cars as another status-wielding symbol, like they own impractical Lamborghinis or mega yachts today.
As I discover newer research, my views on eVTOLs will evolve. For now, these two articles do a very good job of grounding flying cars.
Mobility Around the World
VW’s first mass-market EV suffers delay, thanks to software struggles
I’m really pumped about VW’s ID 3, no joke. The base model of this car will cost $33k and deliver just about 200 miles of range. However:
The electric car won’t ship as planned this summer. Some versions of the car will hit the market with unfinished software in September, and full-featured ones won’t arrive until near the end of the year.
It’s fine, honestly. Delayed launches are a norm in the industry.
But it does expose traditional car makers’ Achilles Heel, which is software. When you’ve buying tech from a bevy of Tier-1 suppliers, each with their own tech stacks (the “ABCDs” - Autoliv, Bosch, Continental, Delphi, to name the top 4), and trying to stitch it all together to get your car working, delays are bound to happen. This is where companies with a vertically integrated and in-house hardware + software stack will continue to shine. Good thing the ID 3 comes with over-the-air updates, VW’s first car equipped to do so, so they can continue fixing software issues even after shipping.
The ID 3 is not expected to launch in the US, which is a bummer. Hey VW, maybe rethink that one?
Japan and France Find Public Transit Seems Safe
No coronavirus clusters have been found on subways, trains and buses in both France and Japan. This is great news for mobility overall.
Most infection clusters there were connected to gyms, bars, music clubs and karaoke rooms; none were traced to the country’s famously crowded commuter trains.
Wear a mask. Take that train to work!
Autonomous Partnership Between BMW and Mercedes-Benz Suspended
The two companies said in a joint statement that it was not the right time for the partnership, given the current economic conditions.
…and that’s all you need to know 🤐
www.selfdrivingcars360.com • Share
Mobility in the US
Lyft pledges that every vehicle on its platform will be electric by 2030
This is such a promising headline, isn’t it? I wish I had stopped reading beyond it, because:
Lyft told TechCrunch it doesn’t plan to disallow drivers from using the Lyft platform if they don’t have an EV.
Errrr, okayyyy… How is Lyft getting to a fully electric fleet by 2030?
“We will aggressively promote and help drivers access incentive funds,” a spokesperson said. “If policymakers do their part in the next few years, EVs should reach cost-parity with gasoline vehicles by mid-decade.”
Sounds like the heavy-lifting will be done by the policymakers while Lyft gets to enjoy the catchy headline. Cool cool cool. Lyft pledged an outcome when they should’ve pledged the process instead, but that would’ve made for a less catchier story.
If they want recommendations on which electric cars to add to their fleet, I have some ideas…
Uber pushes into on-demand public transit with its first SaaS partnership
This is sort of cool. Uber is letting riders on the Transportation Authority of Marin (TAM) to use Uber software/app to book rides. TAM gets paid without developing ticketing software of their own, Uber likely keeps a cut of the fare.
I like this - Uber is getting out of unprofitable, operations-heavy ventures like shared bikes, folding locations in countries where they’re second fiddle, and focusing on monetizing their software/IP-heavy moats. More power to them!
Cities Should Open Streets to Pedestrians and Cyclists
Great OpEd in NY Times on the urgency of using the pandemic as a good change-agent to reshape our cities:
This is a golden moment for the movement known as tactical urbanism. More than 200 cities have already announced road closings in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Thousands of cities have yet to act in any bold way, however. If they do not, they may miss what could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
I learnt a new word too - tactical urbanism (aka DIY Urbanism, Planning-by-Doing, or even Urban Acupuncture 😲).
Give this one a read!
That’s all from me folks. Have a great week!
By Sachin Seth
This weekly newsletter on new mobility is curated by me as a passion project. Yes, the name is an homage to the NPR show of the same name! If you like it, please forward it to whoever is interested in this space. Cheers!
I have worked for many years on automotive products and currently work @ Tesla. All opinions are my own.
If you don't want these updates anymore, please unsubscribe here.
If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe here.
Powered by Revue