Uber Elevate: shared aerial ridesharing

Techcrunch published an article on Uber's R&D on AVs and flying cars last month, showing that Uber spent $457 million on these two sectors in 2018. The company has been well-known for its ambitious plan of replacing human drivers with AVs as its path for profitability. Yet, little attention has been given for its flying car project Uber Elevate, which was first introduced in 2016. It claims that its aerial ridesharing services will be launched in 2023, though the “vehicles” and the infrastructure system do not exist yet (which I will talk about later). Los Angeles and Dallas-Fort Worth are the two domestic pilot cities.  

The flying car for Uber, in essence, is eVTOLS ( electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing vehicles). As shown in the picture, the flying car looks just a helicopter rather than an automobile. The goal for Uber Elevate is to provide affordable, environmental-friendly, shared flight on-demand services. The company targets the most congested metropolitans where “time-saving” is more desirable. In fact, Uber has released the potential fare for its air service: $6 per passenger mile traveled and could come down to $2 per mile in the future. To compare, the best case for the traditional helicopters, the cost is about $9 per mile. Important to note that there are more than 18 companies are developing VTOLs, including Boeing, Ford, and Kitty Hawk. And a recent study done by Ford Motor’s Research and Innovation Center claims that flying cars would be better for the environment for longer trips. The stats are “the potential emissions for "flying cars" was 52 percent lower than that of gas-powered cars and 6 percent lower than battery-electric vehicles on trips of 62 miles (100 kilometers).”  But all these stats are speculative based on VTOL prototypes rather a demonstrable model.

In September 2018, Uber released a reference model, claiming that its flying cars will be 32 times quieter than a standard helicopter and can travel 60 miles on a single charge. Yet, there are still many technological challenges to make flying cars electric, safer, economically feasible, and autonomous in the long term. More importantly, there is the operational challenge- to have properly designed surfaces for landing and takeoffs, which Uber refers to it as skyports. The vision for these skyports is to “handle up to 1,000 landings per hour even within footprints as dense as an acre or 2.” Uber has also planned to construct the skyports above highways so it will utilize areas that already have lots of traffic and noise problem.  I am very skeptical about whether the company can prepare the infrastructure system and whether the public can have easy access to skyports. Since Uber already signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA to create an air traffic control system for low-flying aircraft, what’s the roles of the public in regard to aerial ridesharing? Shall the city support building the infrastructure system for this niche market that will probably only be consumed by the wealthier? I would like to hear your thoughts on Uber Elevate!

Here is the link to Uber Elevate White Paper.

https://www.uber.com/elevate.pdf/