Toyota boosts its investment in air taxi company Joby Aviation by another $500 million

Finally, what the average person needs /s

Finally, what the average person needs /s

It will have to be flown by a licensed commercial pilot and operated under the appropriate regulations for passenger carrying aircraft.

If you look past the seemingly futuristic vehicles, there's no real innovation here. It's just a helicopter. In Sao Paulo, helicopters have always been a popular way for the wealthy to hop from building to building, avoiding the out of control crime, poverty and disorder below.

If companies like Joby Aviation become successful, it will mostly be due to deteriorating living standards and the Brazilification of American cities rather than any major advances in quadcopter or AI technology.

If you look past the seemingly futuristic vehicles, there's no real innovation here

That is a comically incorrect statement. I'm a commercial and instrument rated helicopter pilot and a former US Navy helicopter pilot. I know helicopters. This new design from Joby is utterly unlike any manned helicopter flying today. First it is electric powered. That alone is exceptionally innovative. If you understand how sensitive helicopters are to heat, humidity and density altitude and how under powered they can be in certain conditions powering a helicopter with electricity is a stunning innovation. The amount of power needed to do this is not trivial. And unlike a conventional helicopter that relies and complex mechanical flight controls, rotating swash plates, and articulated rotor blades that change pitch in flight to change the thrust vector, this has rotors with simple fixed pitch blades and effects control changes by varying the speed of the motor under each rotor. No other manned helicopter flies this way. It's the remote control quad copter concept scaled up. No other manned system flies this way though I expect to see more in the near future.

If you look past the seemingly futuristic vehicles, there's no real innovation here. It's just a helicopter. 

Exactly.

It seems like a significant amount of "innovation" from tech companies these days is just slapping catchy sounding names onto things that already exist.

"Helicopter? Nah, they've been around for more than 80 years so we'll never get some gullible Japanese automaker to give us half a billion dollars for inventing one. Call it an "air taxi", that should impress."

That is a comically incorrect statement. I'm a commercial and instrument rated helicopter pilot and a former US Navy helicopter pilot. I know helicopters. This new design from Joby is utterly unlike any manned helicopter flying today. First it is electric powered. That alone is exceptionally innovative. If you understand how sensitive helicopters are to heat, humidity and density altitude and how under powered they can be in certain conditions powering a helicopter with electricity is a stunning innovation. The amount of power needed to do this is not trivial. And unlike a conventional helicopter that relies and complex mechanical flight controls, rotating swash plates, and articulated rotor blades that change pitch in flight to change the thrust vector, this has rotors with simple fixed pitch blades and effects control changes by varying the speed of the motor under each rotor. No other manned helicopter flies this way. It's the remote control quad copter concept scaled up. No other manned system flies this way though I expect to see more in the near future.

I'll defer to your knowledge on helicopters, but at the same time what you describe sounds like what they are developing is a new variation of a helicopter rather than something categorically different.

I mean, its functionally the same thing despite those improvements - a vehicle that can take off and land vertically while carrying passengers from point A to point B.

While I can see there being a market for these things, it seems way more limited than the "taxi" moniker would imply. They'll never be able to use these things to pick up and drop off people wherever they want like a taxi can do - in any urban environment they are going to be regulated like crazy for air traffic/safety/etc concerns and probably limited to flying from fixed points with suitable landing facilities along established corridors.

That can still be useful (ie flights from stations in downtown business districts to airports in the suburbs, or to business districts in adjacent urban areas), but its going to be more like a niche expensive flying bus service for well-to-do people rather than the next Uber or whatever.

Now that they dropped sponsoring Olympics, they have some money to burn on other nonsense.

They are just simplified helicopters and can never become commercially viable as the accident rate would quickly become very high when these are used by many

Does anyone how does this stack up against the eVTOL aircraft made by Archer Aviation? Archer Aviation is a U.S. listed company.

Does anyone how does this stack up against the eVTOL aircraft made by Archer Aviation? Archer Aviation is a U.S. listed company.

The Archer product only has four tilting rotors. The other four stay vertical. Joby tilts all six rotors forward for forward flight. It is the fastest eVTOL and so far has demonstrated the longest endurance. It is also in production for the US Air Force. The Archer can only carry a pilot and one passenger so pretty limited. Joby carries a pilot and up to four passengers. The civil version should be FAA certified by the end of this year. They are well ahead of the competition.

I'll defer to your knowledge on helicopters, but at the same time what you describe sounds like what they are developing is a new variation of a helicopter rather than something categorically different.

The flight controls and the entire concept of how it flies is entirely different from a helicopter. It is a tilt rotor but the blades are not variable pitch like those on a turbo prop aircraft or conventional helicopter. On turbo prop aircraft and helicopters, there are complex systems on their engines to keep propeller or rotor speed constant. Thrust is varied by changing the pitch on variable pitch blades. This doesn't have variable pitch blades. Instead the speed of the electric motors is varied to change thrust during hovering and vertical maneuvering. Likewise forward speed is adjusted by changing motor rpm, not blade pitch. Conventional helicopters, even those with two big rotors like the ones I flew do not do that. The whole flight control theory behind these new electric eVTOLs is completely different from either a helo or a turboprop aircraft. I'd love to try flying one, I bet it's fun.

The flight controls and the entire concept of how it flies is entirely different from a helicopter. It is a tilt rotor but the blades are not variable pitch like those on a turbo prop aircraft or conventional helicopter. On turbo prop aircraft and helicopters, there are complex systems on their engines to keep propeller or rotor speed constant. Thrust is varied by changing the pitch on variable pitch blades. This doesn't have variable pitch blades. Instead the speed of the electric motors is varied to change thrust during hovering and vertical maneuvering. Likewise forward speed is adjusted by changing motor rpm, not blade pitch. Conventional helicopters, even those with two big rotors like the ones I flew do not do that. The whole flight control theory behind these new electric eVTOLs is completely different from either a helo or a turboprop aircraft. I'd love to try flying one, I bet it's fun.

Thats interesting but at the end of the day it still just basically performs the same function that a conventional helicopter does - its a flying vehicle that can take off and land vertically. It doesn't go any faster or travel further than a conventional helicopter, it can't carry heavier loads or more people that a conventional helicopter, etc etc (in fact, I assume that in those regards its actually less functional than a conventional helicopter - trading off those aspects for energy savings, etc).

I'm sure an automotive engineer could likewise spend a great deal of time explaining the technical differences between how an EV works and how a car with an internal combustion engine works, but at the end of the day an EV is still basically a car that performs more or less the same function that cars have been able to do for decades.