Electric air taxis are coming to Chicago, courtesy of United Airlines

[broly]

Forward-looking: Taxi by air is coming soon to a location near you, Chicago being first out. United Airlines and Archer Aviation plan to operate short routes that can save you 50 minutes compared to going by car. This is set to be the first commercial route operated by an electric aircraft.

United Airlines, in collaboration with Archer Aviation, have unveiled their plan to start an air taxi service in Chicago in 2025. The aircraft made by Archer is named Midnight and is designed to fly up to 100 miles, but is optimized for short flights of roughly 20 miles, according to the company.

Midnight is designed to carry four passengers and one pilot along with their luggage and has an expected charge time of 12 minutes in-between flights. The first route to open will be between Chicago O'Hare International Airport and Vertiport Chicago, a trip that is expected to take about 10 minutes as opposed to 45 minutes by car according to Google Maps. United says pricing will be competitive with ground-based ride share.

The benefit of electric aircraft is reduced emissions, but it also comes with significant noise reduction, sitting at 45 dBA, which according to Archer is almost 1,000 times quieter than a helicopter, while also having a similar cruise speed of about 150 miles per hour.

This type of aircraft is called an eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) and it comes equipped with 6 batteries using an 800 volt architecture, each supporting two motors at a time.

With Chicago's population of 2.7 million and O'Hare Airport serving over 68 million passengers in 2022 – coming in at the fourth busiest airport in the world – the interest for this type of service is expected to be high.

With only two years to go before the service launches, many are expecting this to spark a boom of electric powered aircraft similar to what we've seen with electric cars within the decade. It remains to be seen how efficiency and operating cost will compare to petroleum powered aircraft.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/98071-electric-air-taxis-coming-chicago-courtesy-united-airlines.html

 

[Uncle Al]

Sounds good, but I can recall travel times measured in several hours over just 50 minutes. The windy city can have terrific traffic issues .....

 

[Hodor]

The design is a bit unoptimized. Half the engines are unused most of the time, with half the propellers producing drag during horizontal flight. I've seen RC toys with better VTOL solutions.

 

[Tantor]

This might actually be one of the few good business use cases for EVs. They're very reliable, which is going to be important for flight. They will attract higher paying customers. I would expect them to be quieter than ICs which is good for servicing urban areas.

The problem is charging time. Downtime is effectively lost revenue. With expensive machines, it's important to run them as much as possible to maximize profit. The ability to squeeze in a couple more flights per shift may tip the scales toward ICs.

There's an interesting problem with automotive EVs. Evidently, even minor damage to batteries can be irreparable.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/e...-damage-written-off.html?ico=mol_desktop_home

I would expect this to be even worse with aircraft.

 

[Draconian]

United says pricing will be competitive with ground-based ride share.

Will be impressive if they can pull that off.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

This might actually be one of the few good business use cases for EVs. They're very reliable, which is going to be important for flight. They will attract higher paying customers. I would expect them to be quieter than ICs which is good for servicing urban areas.

The problem is charging time. Downtime is effectively lost revenue. With expensive machines, it's important to run them as much as possible to maximize profit. The ability to squeeze in a couple more flights per shift may tip the scales toward ICs.

There's an interesting problem with automotive EVs. Evidently, even minor damage to batteries can be irreparable.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/e...-damage-written-off.html?ico=mol_desktop_home

I would expect this to be even worse with aircraft.

They're reliable, right up until they aren't.

Batteries are infamous for functioning fine and then suddenly doing something like going from 40% to 1% remaining charge. This is a royal PITA in something like a car, its lethal in an aircraft.

 

[amghwk]

Rechargeable batteries are always pita. They lose their efficiency quite rapidly.

 

[loki1944]

Rechargeable batteries are always pita. They lose their efficiency quite rapidly.

Wait until they lose it at 10,000 feet.

 

[Gastec]

Air taxis, for me and my fellow billionaires.
Meanwhile Germany, under orders from Bruxelles, is planning to ban all ICE vehicles starting with 2035. Not 2135, but 13 years from now.
Think about being told in the year 2000 that in 2013 all HDD's would be banned.

 

[OortCloud]

Need to be banned. The energy required to fly people around is astronomical. Just because they are electric doesn't mean they are clean. Ludicrous idea - the noise alone of all those taxis buzzing around. When will we ever stop making the environment we have to live in a more unpleasant place to be?

 

[AxelAminoff]

How about rail between the city centre and the airport. Lots of European cities have that, either regular trains or a special shuttle line (Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and the list goes on). You can literally take the train to and from the Airport. Copenhagen is my favorite.
Air taxis are stupid and cater to a small number of (rich) people and will not solve traffic congestion.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

How about rail between the city centre and the airport. Lots of European cities have that, either regular trains or a special shuttle line (Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and the list goes on). You can literally take the train to and from the Airport. Copenhagen is my favorite.
Air taxis are stupid and cater to a small number of (rich) people and will not solve traffic congestion.

That would be massively expensive and would require major changes to the city, including going through neighborhoods that would protest it.

And even if you get through the often decade long legal fight to demolish homes and tear things up, light rail across the US is unprofitable. So whos going to pay for it?

 

[mbrowne5061]

The design is a bit unoptimized. Half the engines are unused most of the time, with half the propellers producing drag during horizontal flight. I've seen RC toys with better VTOL solutions.

Sounds like you should go to work for this company then; they could use your talent in aircraft design.

 

[trieste1s]

How about rail between the city centre and the airport. Lots of European cities have that, either regular trains or a special shuttle line (Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm and the list goes on). You can literally take the train to and from the Airport. Copenhagen is my favorite.
Air taxis are stupid and cater to a small number of (rich) people and will not solve traffic congestion.

Exactly.

NA cities just don't get it, all they need to solve their traffic woes is to take many leaves out of Amsterdam's book. It's not a perfect book but it's the most promising for mass transport that is actually rapid.

 

[Q Wales]

Why the hell would they design this with a charging time overhead, surely you would be smart enough to have some sort of cassette swap out similar to what can be seen in India with their little electric vehicles

 

[John Staerck]

Air taxis, for me and my fellow billionaires.
Meanwhile Germany, under orders from Bruxelles, is planning to ban all ICE vehicles starting with 2035. Not 2135, but 13 years from now.
Think about being told in the year 2000 that in 2013 all HDD's would be banned.

The EU has dictated a ban on the sale of new ICE cars from 2035, some German car manufacturers are pushing for an exception to be made for synthetic fuel powered vehicles.

Here in the UK it's even worse, the ban on new ICE cars starts in 2030, only seven years from now, and new hybrids from 2035. This is causing the sale of second hand cars to sky rocket. The idiocy of this headlong rush to be carbon neutral without an infrastructure to support it is that it doesn't address the vast amount of pollution caused by deisel powered commercial vehicles.

 

[Gastec]

The EU has dictated a ban on the sale of new ICE cars from 2035, some German car manufacturers are pushing for an exception to be made for synthetic fuel powered vehicles.

Here in the UK it's even worse, the ban on new ICE cars starts in 2030, only seven years from now, and new hybrids from 2035. This is causing the sale of second hand cars to sky rocket. The idiocy of this headlong rush to be carbon neutral without an infrastructure to support it is that it doesn't address the vast amount of pollution caused by deisel powered commercial vehicles.

How about the pollution caused by commercial jets, freighters, military ships, airplanes and vehicles, India and China ? Why are these increasingly-totalitarian governments always going after us, the little citizens, those of us who are among the cleanest of all peoples?