The Paris Olympics Promised Flying Taxis—Here’s Why They Failed to Launch
https://www.wired.com/story/the-dream-of-flying-taxis-in-paris-failed-to-take-off/
The Paris Olympics Promised Flying Taxis—Here’s Why They Failed to Launch
https://www.wired.com/story/the-dream-of-flying-taxis-in-paris-failed-to-take-off/
10 Comments
After years of planning, the flying taxis project failed to convince Parisian politicians, the public, and safety officials that the technology was ready for widespread use at the Summer Olympics. A [sole flying taxi ascended](https://www.volocopter.com/en/newsroom/vc-flight-versailles-palace) over Versailles for five minutes on the last day of the Olympics, but it had no passengers. The promise of tourists traveling over Paris in flying taxis failed to materialize, and instead the technology suffered a high-profile setback. Volocopter declined WIRED’s request for an on-record comment about what went wrong.
Flying cars have been mythologized by sci-fi, featuring in movies from [The Fifth Element](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KSwXWH-Sj0) to [Blade Runner](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRXifdYkWvY) as a symbol of the future. But what happened in Paris shows the barriers that stand between the technology and its modern-day debut. Their supporters have yet to find a way to effectively sell them to the public or even decide what—or who—exactly flying taxis are for.
Read more: [https://www.wired.com/story/the-dream-of-flying-taxis-in-paris-failed-to-take-off/](https://www.wired.com/story/the-dream-of-flying-taxis-in-paris-failed-to-take-off/)
It didn’t happen because no regulatory body in either North America or Europe has developed the framework by which these aircraft would be approved for passenger use.
They are still figuring out what tests need to be done to certify an electric motor, batteries, etc is safe enough for this application.
Because people still drive poorly in two dimensions.
why would you want something like that given inherent dangers? theres going to be an accident, possibly fatal that will dominate the press when the focus should be on the athletes and their accomplishments.
Flying cars and their promise have been misunderstood by most everybody since the start. 🙁
Not the fault of Science Fiction if “flying” sounded much more alluring than “hovering” or “floating”, but with a few exceptions that’s what was being depicted: groundside transportation free of the tyranny of friction and hopefully of the intense attention needed to drive each vehicle. The icing on the cake would be to have many more traffic “lanes” than mere ground surface could accommodate. Thus “air cars”.
Floating cars streaming along their assigned lanes, saving energy, time, and sanity, versus everybody flying freely in the middle of cities, wasting energy (and lives, and property) for no advantage. Which has a chance of becoming reality? Hint: we already have floating trains.
Please ground your expectations. Vanquishing friction would be a triumph. Leave free-flight fantasies for a future where we have energy to waste and much better traffic control.
Flying taxis are very likely going to be fully automated, probably with trained remote control operators as backup.
Humans are good at reacting to a very variable environment in two dimensions and bad at coping with a 3 dimensional but relatively empty and predictable environment. There may bad drivers around but most people can drive safely with relatively little training compared to pilots.
However computers are the pretty much exact opposite. Autopilot is old and proven technology and the reason a pilot is necessary is legacy infrastructure/technology and scale.
I can definitely see relatively affordable flying taxis on preprogramed routes between ports (presumably arriving from a depot to a more convenient pickup point) with a quick and simple booking process. We just need to free ourselves from the idea that they’ll be like the chaotic free for all of flying highways you see in science fiction.
You really want flying cars with Raygun in the vicinity?
why people always call electric helicopters “flying cars”?
Do they run on evil polluting fuel or electric. We live in such an hypocrite times.
Flying cars exist and there are manufacturers ready and waiting to hit start on the assembly line for people to purchase. The issue in america is regulatory. Being not quite planes or helicopters, they occupy a space somewhere in between hobby drones and ultralight class airframes that dont requires pilot liscencing and faa certification. So u cant get tabs for them to be road or sky worthy because theres no agency assigned to officially be designated to clear a new model to be safe enough to git the road or the skies. Also theres the issue of navigating airspace and where they are and arent allowed to fly, who, what, where, when, etc a car can fly. Then there are also issues of insurance, liability, training and certification requisites for driver/pilots, rules and laws and safety issues. I also feel like the only way it will be allowed to happen is with autonomous systems in control of flying. Post 9/11 and terrorists and what not, this is why we cant have nice or fun or awesome freedom things.
I remember reading an article (wired maybe? The drive? Or jalopnik) about there being a secret conference where the heads of all the major automakers flew into a city and insurance execs and faa, ntsb, transportation dept secretary, and all the feds had a private conference where it was speculated they were trying to wirk out new the details. Not sure whatever happened with that but im sure pandemic happened and everyone got distracted and probably havent been able to come back to planning yet.