[HN Gopher] Electric Flying Cars May Be Possible with New Batteries
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       Electric Flying Cars May Be Possible with New Batteries
        
       Author : MindGods
       Score  : 13 points
       Date   : 2021-06-15 15:53 UTC (7 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (spectrum.ieee.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (spectrum.ieee.org)
        
       | baybal2 wrote:
       | Well, a wrong incentive.
       | 
       | A battery being charged can get to 60deg without any help,
       | usually it is a problem.
       | 
       | Any battery above around 20kWh will need very good cooling for
       | any much high charging speed.
       | 
       | Battery volumes scale nonlinearly with their cooling needs,
       | obviously. And big batteries require heavy cooling systems.
       | 
       | Under 20kWh packs may not need a cooling system as such, which is
       | a big, big cost, weight, and complexity saver.
       | 
       | This way, a faster recharging, but smaller, and more durable
       | battery might be way more practical in kms driven vs. hours spent
       | charging.
       | 
       | Telsa gets 5 km per kWh, and takes an eternity to charge, Renault
       | Twizy gets almost 10 km per kWh, and charges at 12 km per minute
       | with aftermarket fast charger.
        
       | rochansinha wrote:
       | Link to the original article 'Challenges and key requirements of
       | batteries for electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft ':
       | https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(21)00205-1
        
       | mullen wrote:
       | Why is there an obsession with Flying Cars? The last thing I ever
       | want to see is the average American driver or below average
       | American driver flying a car. Anytime I think of a person who
       | "rolls coal" or gets angry driving, I shudder to think that
       | someday, they might have access to a Flying Car.
        
         | noahtallen wrote:
         | More than one of the new flying car / flying taxi / electric
         | plane concepts are autonomous. Imo, this tech is more about:
         | 
         | 1. Making short flights more viable
         | 
         | 2. Making electric planes more viable
         | 
         | 3. Seeing if AI is viable as a pilot
         | 
         | I also really doubt the FAA is going to just let anyone fly an
         | electric "car", given how non-trivial getting a pilot's license
         | is. Maybe there's a middle ground for drone-type planes which
         | probably have a "simpler" flight model than a plane or
         | helicopter, but I can't see it being just anyone. Even flying
         | at night or flying in a cloud requires even further licensing
         | and training since you can't see where you're going like you
         | can with a car. Can't see that going away either
        
           | awillen wrote:
           | Right now my understanding is many of the eVTOL companies are
           | trying to make the UI simple enough that it does not require
           | a pilot, but rather an operator, which is a much lower bar in
           | terms of training.
           | 
           | The objective is then really to use these as air taxis/Ubers,
           | not individually owned cars. United, for example, is planning
           | to use them to shuttle passengers to/from LAX, which makes a
           | ton of sense, because they can go from designated points (as
           | opposed to something like curbside pickup, where they'd have
           | to find space to land), and they're hitting an ideal use case
           | of avoiding traffic that is predictably heavy.
           | 
           | Obviously if/when AI is viable, that makes them even more
           | useful.
        
         | Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
         | I think the problem of a "flying car" is that it will require a
         | pretty major redefinition of "car".
         | 
         | The way I see it, you have two common ways of generating lift:
         | You either have spinning rotors on a vertical axis, like a
         | helicopter or drone, or you have a propeller that pulls the
         | vehicle forward, with air traveling over the wings to generate
         | lift.
         | 
         | If your idea of a flying car resembles the drone or helicopter,
         | when we already have them, they're called helicopters.
         | 
         | If you think of something with wings, when we already have them
         | in the form of ultralight aircraft and small Cessnas.
         | 
         | Neither of which are cars, and neither would you want in your
         | neighborhood, since they're incredibly loud.
         | 
         | Now, I know know Aeromobile exists and has created a plane with
         | wings that fold and can be driven on streets, but it looks like
         | it'd just be shitty as a car AND a plane.
        
         | pixel_tracing wrote:
         | I think stricter licensing and maybe even a mandatory psych
         | evaluation beforehand might help?
        
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       (page generated 2021-06-15 23:02 UTC)