from Hacker News

Are eVTOLs the “mother of all aerospace bubbles”?

by thearn4 on 2/8/22, 10:11 PM with 12 comments

  • by Atheros on 2/8/22, 11:43 PM

    The real money maker here will be the heliports if they're privately owned. Because you own the bottleneck, you run the auction to determine who gets to take off and land. If the cost of the vehicles drops, more of the money that end users are willing to pay ends up in your pocket. Vehicle manufactures will be in a cut-throat race to reduce costs but ticket prices would never drop because $1 saved in vehicle cost would just be $1 in the pocket of the heliport operator.

    That is unless the government can actually step up and set this up correctly: with a license auction. You bid on the right to operate the heliport every two years. License auctions work extremely well as demonstrated by radio frequency spectrum auctions and hot dog vendor location auctions.

  • by jmpman on 2/9/22, 5:45 AM

    Was thinking about how I would use these eVTOLs, and realized that everywhere I would want to go, there was a Costco relatively close. Costco to Costco throughout a metro might make sense. If the eVTOL could go 100 mph, it would cut my travel time in half, at 200mph, Dana Point to LAX in 20min during rush hour would be revolutionary.

  • by V_Terranova_Jr on 2/9/22, 4:28 AM

    It's definitely a bubble, not sure of the "mother of all aerospace bubbles". Small launch might be the "mother of all aerospace bubbles". Another aerospace sector that is not credible is the current batch of commercial supersonic companies.

  • by oceanplexian on 2/9/22, 4:19 AM

    eVTOLs are just helicopters powered by electricity. They are still susceptible to all the same things that cause accidents with any other type of aircraft. Imagine a loud drone but scale it up 100x and then picture thousands of these flying over city streets. It's insane and impractical.

  • by fargle on 2/9/22, 4:04 AM

    yes