eVTOL: Tony Stark Has Left the Building
The massive investment we are seeing in vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is both exciting, and puzzling.
Exciting in that, undoubtedly, electric take-off and landing aircraft are a pretty cool concept! Who is not excited by the prospect of an air taxi that can take off straight up, buzz to a new destination at vastly faster speeds than a car on the freeway, and then set down close to the passengers' final destination? This vision is closer than ever in an era where we have finally developed light- and energy-dense enough batteries, powerful enough electric motors, and advanced enough materials to make electric VTOL flight systems technically viable.
Puzzling in that, the vehicles in development have frighteningly short ranges, are many more years away from more commercially viable ranges as they either develop next generation batteries or go to hydrogen or other energy dense green fuels, or potentially both. But even more concerning is: where will these vehicles land in any real volume?
To illustrate, I live about 40 miles from downtown San Francisco. The middle 38 miles are all freeway driving, where I will neither confirm or deny I do a bit higher than the posted speed limit. However, the minute I hit the offramp in SF, I may spend 15 to 30 minutes navigating within the city and then finding parking. The reason being because my car is 10 feet long, five feet wide, and weighs a couple thousand pounds.
If I had access to an electric VTOL, undoubtedly I can do those middle 38 miles in even less time than the freeway, which is wonderful. But where I am I going to land the craft? Yes, there will be a number of buildings that will have a roof airpad (air portal?) I can land upon, but how many? 8 million people live in NYC, but 25 million work there each day. Where are 16 million people supposed to land? I can see how the Tony Starks of life will be able to avail of the service, but how could it possibly support any material volume, and cost effectively? More broadly, people would still need to travel somehow the "first mile" to the VTOL departure pad, and then the "last mile" on the other end, which is where most of the journey’s time is typically lost.
Also puzzling, if an aircraft that can take off vertically from a location, fly faster than freeway speeds some 30-80 miles, and then land on a roof, is a fantastic business innovation: why have helicopter taxi services not taken off as a major industry the last several decades? Other than not being electric, a helicopter is a four passenger VTOL aircraft, and we have had that technology for years. Is the operating cost of an electric VTOL versus a fossil-fueled one so overwhelming as to completely re-write the business model?
An alternative perspective might be to think about other solutions that leverage existing Infrastructure, and serve the larger problem. For example, about 30-40% of our city surfaces are already paved. We have spent over a century investing in that. We can re-allocate that pavement and make it more productive by...moving lines of paint. For the cost of paint, and maybe a little sand, we can increase the number of lanes per road by narrowing them and promoting micro-cars; we can allocate more dedicated bike lanes, light vehicle parking, and promote micro-mobility in concert with mass transportation. We can densify parking and reclaim more pavement back for moving vehicles. We can innovate trash collection and last mile delivery to not snarl a major portion of our city street capacity and free up throughput. We can also leverage other existing charging infrastructure, called electrical outlets, that we have also spent about a century installing almost everywhere.
Don’t get me wrong. I am excited about electric VTOLs and I would love to check it out as soon as it is commercially available. And I am sure there will be a premium market for these services for the Tony Starks out there for whom time is serious money. I am just thinking about the other 99.9% of us…..
