I’m currently in a part of the world where helicopter delivery is so cheap and common that locals are complaining. “It should be more expensive…” someone told me last autumn.
The helicopters (and drones!) are loud and annoying. Until these problems are solved, locals will resist converting all airspace into the equivalent of a loud, high-speed roadway.
"EHang’s much-touted, recently granted certification comes with numerous flight restrictions that it has failed to fully disclose to investors. The restrictions invalidate the bulk of its potential commercial use cases, including restrictions against flying in densely populated areas, in shared airspace, and out of sight of a ground crew.
EHang claims restrictions will be progressively lifted, but according to China-based eVTOL experts, EHang’s flagship aircraft would need a billion-dollar redesign and an entirely different class of certification to avoid the limitations."
I definitely don't want to belittle the achievement, but I would imagine that creating safe self-driving helicopters is much easier than creating safe self-driving cars. (At least as long as the skies are just as empty as they are today. Once it's full of things like the roads, that will be a different topic)
Anyway, detecting and avoiding obstacles should be in the menu. Maybe not as complex as at street level with people and cars doing unexpected things, but maybe with some added complexity that need to have into account like weather, inertia and things near landing sites.
I'm not sure you can avoid birds like a skateboad running onto the street.
If anything I expect dynamic avoid areas or timed "no fly" zones depending on bird mass. Maneuvering to avoid birds seems like a recipe for disaster.
If a drone flies at a speed that gives birds time to take notice and react/avoid, does it remove the danger ? I wonder if there is wide variation among species.
Self-driving car senses objects and must make difficult decisions: Is this radar reflection from stationary light pole or from a moving object? Is this a parked car or a moving car? Will this pedestrain/biker jump on the roadway? What if the car next to me going to turn left sharply?
No such thing exists in the air. The air is mostly empty, there are no stationary objects next to the route. If there is a building, aircraft can fly as far as 500 meters away from it - try finding a driveable road with no obstacles at that distance. There is no people or large animals. There is not even curb to hit.
Importantly, I bet there are no legacy vehicles in the approved routes - and I am sure they will have some sort of V2V tech to ensure that all objects in the air will transmit their position and intention.
Not every airplane does that. Commercial planes mostly do, but its not mandated under all circumstances as far as I know. (Speaking for my region only)
All commercial planes have it at this point. And most part 91 airplanes (General Aviation) have it at this point. Without ADSB you cannot fly in or near class A, B, or C airspace and must stay below 10,000 feet. Which largely makes having an airplane useless for most people.
There are still airplanes flying that have no electrical system but even then some of them have retrofitted a system.
I was answering with the purposes of flight-taxis in mind. I doubt that they will fly in high altitude and deem it quite likely that they might want to pass uncontrolled airspace at some point.
And if you're flying in uncontrolled airspace you just can't count on the presence of it. In fact, missing transponders are an occasional source of accidents in these spaces. There are lots of gliding enthusiasts that aren't equipped.
P.S.: Commercial planes (esp. big ones) should have hardly any contact points with flying taxis.
More degrees of freedom, easier collision avoidance. The mechanical part is a lot harder, of course, but the "self driving" part is a lot easier. We had autopilot and auto-land in planes well before we had anything of the sort in cars.
A self driving car needs to be able to reliably drive within ~1 foot of arbitrary obstacles, recognize junk in the road, recognize people in the road, obey vague hand signals from random cops, obey every weird traffic sign in the world, obey every traffic law, and disobey signs and laws when convention requires it.
Helicopters don’t have to deal with any of that. There won’t be any random obstacles. No human drivers to contend with. No conflict between legality and practice to navigate.
everything with a mass over 1kg+- in the air, is carrying a "gps" and something that is transmitting its location, and all air traffic world wide is(theoreticaly) assigned a flight path for each trip,witha specific flight level, ie: the planning is 3d, so the density per layer, never gets very high, and there are specific paths taken to change layers, there are never any dogs, or horses, or people trying to deek, there are no signs or maps, and in case of fully automated vtol
taxis, navigation will be to mm accuracy, with likely a routine to land fully autonomously on loosing the network, and a backup ballistic recovery parachute, if power is completly lost or another emergency situation occurs.
and also likely is that forward speeds will be low enough, that collisions with birds will be a low probability, and rotors will likely be schrouded, keeping the idiots heads attached when determinidly trying for that gota have selfie.
This is not correct. There is no hard requirement for GPS nor anything that requires “something that transmits its location”. There is also no requirement for a flight plan or communication with ATC.
I can take off from an uncontrolled airport with no GPS, no transponder, no plan, and no radio and as long as I’m in the correct airspace I’m completely legal and within my right to do so.
There are some differences with these rules through out the world.
This is just plain wrong. With glider planes, you can fly around wherever you like (in the non-restricted airspace) and aren’t required to have ADS-B or FLARM in Europe. Most people don’t do it but you could entirely rely on visual detection to prevent collisions.
With some clearer wording on what's been approved so far,
- "Early EH216-S operations will come with heavy limitations, which EHang said it aims to lift in phases. For example, flights are restricted to Guangzhou and Hefei and must land where they lifted off[...] In other words, the EH216-S is approved for applications like out-and-back aerial tourism but not air taxi services in cities."
(I don't want to derail this thread too strongly, but the current source looks very much like AI slop. The text is egregiously LLM, and, if you zoom in [0] on the people in the backgrounds of the photos, there's some Lovecraftian horror going on with those faces!)
I heard that the entire country is in a state of panic after two Xiaomi SU7 autopilot crashes. Motorways have put up signs warning drivers not to use autopilot or assisted driving. Authorities and manufacturers are now trying to explain the previous false advertising.
It doesn't mention how much noise does it make.
Even though it's electric, drones are usually damn noisy and annoying,
and something of this size can't possibly be any better.
This is my main concern as well. The article [1] that perihelions linked to says that the approved vehicle is produced by EHang and the model is called EH216-S. A quick search yielded this Reddit thread [2] which suggests the noise level is 80dB.
> These vehicles are expected to redefine how cities tackle traffic congestion and pollution
Counterpoint: no they're not.
These sorts of very large drones may well become more popular, but they're not gonna become widespread enough to impact traffic congestion. The realistic target is becoming a moderately more popular version of helicopters for the sufficiently affluent.
Imagine the perfect city, with lots of green parks, great restaurants with outdoor seating, shops, do you think it should have noisy drones in it? Or a thousand drones?
Okay, so the ccp backdoored the things(cause of course ) and so all ot takes is some domestic terrorist load one with fuel and smash it into some party hq? Will be interesting wether thex can burry that sort of 9/11
We have helicopter rental “blade” in New York and various other cities, and similar devices to this in development. As is usually the case(and is usually to our benefit), we have an external bias, and more stringent aerospace laws. I applaud them for this but do not turn this into some “America bad” doomerism
It is both amazing and sad to see China is literally in the future compared to the US in terms of infrastructure and social development.
A trip to one of the major cities in China made it clear to me that they are ahead of the world right now. The amount of tech and the level of integration are unbelievable. In comparasion, the streets of SF, one of the crown jewels of the US technosphere, are just so "normal" I find it hard to believe.
It is the same feeling I had decades ago walking into a then-modern metropolis in the US for the first time. All the cool tech, the convenience, the upscale atmosphere, the extravagance of it all were striking. I have not felt that again for a while and I just think it can't happen again with what I am already used to now. Incredible that China managed to evoke that sense of awe in me again.
Can you tell me more? I visited Shenzhen few months ago and wasn't that astonished. Pretty normal city. Well, I was surprised about few things, like overall lack of traffic jams in the 17-million city, roads seems to be well planned, but I could just be lucky. And that's me coming from Kazakhstan, which is not exactly first-world country. Life seems kind of the same, taxi apps, map with reviews, delivery guys, etc.
Actually I'd argue that Chinese IT is slightly behind Kazakhstan, because their localization is so bad. Baidu maps does not provide English translation at all, and that seems the only proper maps for China. Most WeChat apps I tried also were Chinese-only. I'm pretty sure that every major website and application is well translated to English in my country, Chinese people seems to care very little about English, which makes it particularly hard for international visitors. I literally had to screenshot some app over and over, pasting it to Google Translate to be able to register in the some metro app, so I could actually buy tickets with app and not cash.
Also motorcycle people were absolutely crazy about road rules, like they don't care at all about anything. Auto road, pedestrian road, red light, opposite direction, anything works for them. I was seriously concerned about someone hitting me, which didn't happen, but few times it was close. Car people, on the opposite, were pretty disciplined. May be cameras don't work for motorcycles?
For me, I guess it was the experience with the public transport, the cleanliness of the city, the way everything was built to interact with your phone seamlessly and automatically once you have the local apps(at the cost of privacy, I am fully aware), and the dazzling look of it all. Everything is new and shiny and feel safe. And not just the sterile kind of clean, but one that has a vibrant life under it.
Yes, the english localization is trash. But I mean, I am in China, I am happy enough they even have some english available. I speak some other Asian languages and not sure if it was obvious, but the US also have trash translation to those languages here too.
Maybe that was the biggest difference. I can read a bit of chinese so my experience was more "the way it was meant to be" I guess? I assume it can disappoint if you expect just an upscaled Western experience there. China is big enough they don't need to cater to rich foreigners. I knew the feeling well enough when I first came to the US so I am not surprised. But maybe it is a novel experience to Westerners.
The problem is the many cities in the West are objectively terrible compared to cities elsewhere in the world, so many people who don't have that global perspective come to China and think "it's so futuristic" or so, when in reality it's something that has been achieved elsewhere decades ago and China is just one in the line of a common trend. Even when others in this thread say cities like Singapore or Hong Kong are "futuristic", Singapore has been like that since the late 90s, that's not futuristic, it's rather the norm since the 2000s. Certainly those from Asia, even Southeast Asia aren't finding those cities paticularly revolutionary, if not a bit shinier.
Some Chinese Cities may try to "integrate" tech more like in Shenzhen with drone delivery, flying taxis here, or qr-code scanning or whatnot, but that's just more of gimmicks for a select few rather than fundamental lifestyle changes. Far as I would say, Tokyo is still likely the most "developed" of cities in terms of quality of life.
Do you mean North America? Because cities in Europe and Oceania are wildly different from the cities in North America and definitely not 'objectively terrible compared to cities elsewhere in the world' (which includes cities in Africa, which honestly aren't amazing).
Tokyo feels more retro futuristic than modern futuristic. Aside from the Shinkansen, a lot of the tech and software you interact with there feels antiquated and even borderline terrible. Meanwhile in SF there are self driving cars everywhere, tech company billboards everywhere, apps with great UX, etc.
I have not been to either for 20+ years, but Singapore or Hong Kong did not feel futuristic to me. Singapore is certainly efficiently run and clean, but at the time I definitely would have preferred living in London (or multiple smaller British cities), or Paris, or Sydney (culturally, if not geographically, western)
Singapore will always be Disneyland with the Death Penalty (early 90s) in my book. But seriously, china built outs its cities much later than the west, and they have a cyberpunk feel. But it feels like a lot of gimmicks, even Japan feels like that (they build things like Tokyo's Skytree, but it isn't very practical, and they just repeat this all over the country). If you live in a city, the basics matter, like...nice public transit, which china has built out very nicely in the last two decades.
> It is both amazing and sad to see China is literally in the future compared to the US in terms of infrastructure and social development.
To be fair, it's usually easier to build state of the art, when you start from scratch. Western countries have a big legacy they build decades ago, which has to be used and maintained for decades to justify the investment.
And as a visitor, it's also more likely to only see the fancy parts, and not be confronted with the dark parts, especially when you have a strong leader who's dedicated goal is to sell a positive view of the country.
How are they ahead in this regard? Tech is one thing, but social credit scores and the level of censorship seem regressive rather than progressive to me.
> Tech is one thing, but social credit scores and the level of censorship seem regressive rather than progressive to me.
I can't stress enough how you need to do your own research on this stuff. American propaganda has depicted China as a ruthless peasant state for decades, and it's only in recent years that news like this has opened peoples' eyes to the fact that that all was a cover for the fact that they've passed us in recent decades.
tl;dr: The "social credit score" is mostly myth. From the article:
>By 2019, China’s central authorities were stating explicitly that they were not happy with the idea. They issued formal clarifications that scores could not be used to penalize citizens and that only formal legal documents could serve as grounds for penalties.
Compare this to the US, in which things like DUIs on your background can be used to deny you Constitutional rights. There's no nothing exceptional about how they're doing things over there when it comes to this.
There are many reports of international students having their statuses, i.e. permission to stay in the US, revoked for being involved in legal matters. The wording of the revocation is vague so nothing is certain but these students reported they have never done any crime except DUIs/DWIs/traffic incidents.
The status revocations are sudden and opaque. The students do not have an opportunity to appeal nor explain. They immediately become illegals once the decision is made and thus become subjects to detainment without due process. In practice they must immediately make arrangements to leave the US or they will risk future visa bans as them being in the country without status can also be considered violating immigration laws.
So, hypothetically, someone who came to the US for a bachelor and decided to go for a PhD, spending about 10 years here, can be forced to abandon everything in matters of days. A tricky situation, yet completely overshadowed by the tariff news and ignored by the masses.
Thanks, I hadn't heard about DUIs being used as a justification for revoking status.
(I'm all for treating DUIs seriously, but using a one time offense as justification for such serious consequences seems over the top to me; obviously the lack of transparency and due process make the whole thing much more troubling as well.)
Given that permanent residents in the U.S. seem to have lost all of their free speech rights, and citizens aren’t far behind, I think we can call that precise issue a truce for now. Definitely other human rights/freedoms we still have over them at the moment.
In the future in a good way or a bad way? I haven't seen or heard of any tech being used only in China that i would actually want in my city. These "air taxis" for example are way too loud
This seems to be a matter of preference. I feel awe when I visit charming old European cities with great walkability. "Modern" is great for aeroplanes but overrated for cities.
Chinese cities like Shanghai have been world class for a long time. The last time I was there, I had a dinner with a client on the outskirts of Shanghai. I took multiple subways to reach there and found that neighborhood quite ordinary and starkly different from Shanghai itself. Of course this is also an anecdote but gives you a different perspective. I also know a few people who visit China often and they tell me the cities are definitely futuristic.
Personally I think Singapore is the most futuristic city-state in the world.
Strange comment, there’s plenty of videos of both locations on YouTube to make the comparison and I think it’s quite apt. Chinese (and other SEA) major cities definitely feel much more modern than most American cities these days. Most American metropolitan areas are quite bland/bleak outside the “beautified” green areas.
> A trip to one of the major cities in China made it clear to me that they are ahead of the world right now
Sorry, I should have been more clear, this is what I was referencing. I have been to SF recently and would agree it's not hard to make a lot of cities look better in comparison.
Have you been to SF? It’s like a zombie movie with shocking public transport. There are many nicer cities which seem futuristic compared to SF. I’ve not been to a Chinese metropolis but if you just look at some photos it wouldn’t be hard to imagine somewhere like Shenzhen being much further ahead.
Actually I would enjoy a low tech, less integrated and connected experience.
I like interacting with nature, people more than swiping in an app.
I like old tramways in Lisbon more than flying taxis. I like small Greek buildings and even baroque and neoclassical architecture more than glass and metal buildings and skyscrapers.
It is also amazing and sad to see positive comments on such technological developments in China where similar developments in e.g. the USA would be lambasted on this very same site: Flying taxi drones? They'll fall out of the sky on the heads of the elderly and Musk should stay away from this. Tech and integration? Big brother getting even bigger and no I don't want Musk to be part of this. Is it just that the neighbour's grass is always greener or is there some deeper reason for the oikophobia that has become so popular, especially in 'progressive' circles?
I also notice you're mentioning SF without mentioning that this city - like so many others - has been driven into the ground by decades of mismanagement by so-called "democrats". California is on a road to nowhere while building high-speed trains to nowhere, the streets in SF only get cleaned up when the leader of the Chinese Communist party comes to visit, the place is a dump and people are leaving it in droves. It wasn't when I was there for the first time in 1979 - people on roller skates, some left-over hippies, disco really made it - but the last time I visited - 2003, for the IETF conference - the signs were already clearly visible and I was warned that the hostel I stayed in in the Tenderloin district was 'not in a safe area' and that I should not walk around the city (which I did anyway, I'm stubborn).
California should kick the "democrats" to the curb for a while, try to repair the damage they did to the place and its reputation and maybe, just maybe the "Golden State" can once again become the place of dreams it once used to be. This is not so much an endorsement of Republicans but simply a statement of fact, a single-party system nearly always leads to decline. To slightly paraphrase MC5: Kick Out The Dems! [1]
When I made that comparison, I did not mean to bring politics into the conversation, but I assume it is a natural direction people can take it too.
I will just say this: the issues with the US are beyond *partisan* politics. In my opinion, it is a social problem much deeper than what is shown on TVs and discussed in election campaigns. Changing the party in power will not change the situation. Until the US acknowledged these matters, it will continue on the same path it has been.
Hope this doesn't take off (kek), EVs have made PRC cities increasingly tranquil, dealing with rotors would be huge step down in QoL. Fine for quick transit across water.
That said, maybe they can optimize for size:volume. it would actually be pretty good to displace delivery network from ground level. Maybe even straight to 40th storey balcony / living room delivery sometime.
i can certainly say i would not want to hear that daily or (or with any regularity) - yt wCm68PmmSQ8 to listen to it. still not even used to the small airport with newer air traffic routes rumbling residential neighborhoods nightly afterhours. but oh well i guess; more people seems to follow more noise and light pollution (and i dont want to abandon the quietness)
Yeah, without a reinforced nacelle you could easily end up with a fatal birdstrike here. One shudders to imagine how thin that polyethylene window is...
I’m currently in a part of the world where helicopter delivery is so cheap and common that locals are complaining. “It should be more expensive…” someone told me last autumn.
The helicopters (and drones!) are loud and annoying. Until these problems are solved, locals will resist converting all airspace into the equivalent of a loud, high-speed roadway.
Which part of the world is that?
Nepal maybe
Additional reading:
https://hindenburgresearch.com/ehang/
"EHang’s much-touted, recently granted certification comes with numerous flight restrictions that it has failed to fully disclose to investors. The restrictions invalidate the bulk of its potential commercial use cases, including restrictions against flying in densely populated areas, in shared airspace, and out of sight of a ground crew.
EHang claims restrictions will be progressively lifted, but according to China-based eVTOL experts, EHang’s flagship aircraft would need a billion-dollar redesign and an entirely different class of certification to avoid the limitations."
Also from the Chinese Civil Aviation Authority:
https://www.caac.gov.cn/XXGK/XXGK/BZGF/ZYTJHHM/202202/t20220...
"EHang EH216-S Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System Special Conditions.pdf" (in Chinese) - https://www.caac.gov.cn/XXGK/XXGK/BZGF/ZYTJHHM/202202/P02022...
++1
I definitely don't want to belittle the achievement, but I would imagine that creating safe self-driving helicopters is much easier than creating safe self-driving cars. (At least as long as the skies are just as empty as they are today. Once it's full of things like the roads, that will be a different topic)
1 word: birds.
Anyway, detecting and avoiding obstacles should be in the menu. Maybe not as complex as at street level with people and cars doing unexpected things, but maybe with some added complexity that need to have into account like weather, inertia and things near landing sites.
I'm not sure you can avoid birds like a skateboad running onto the street. If anything I expect dynamic avoid areas or timed "no fly" zones depending on bird mass. Maneuvering to avoid birds seems like a recipe for disaster.
If a drone flies at a speed that gives birds time to take notice and react/avoid, does it remove the danger ? I wonder if there is wide variation among species.
Can you expand on how you reason it would be easier?
Self-driving car senses objects and must make difficult decisions: Is this radar reflection from stationary light pole or from a moving object? Is this a parked car or a moving car? Will this pedestrain/biker jump on the roadway? What if the car next to me going to turn left sharply?
No such thing exists in the air. The air is mostly empty, there are no stationary objects next to the route. If there is a building, aircraft can fly as far as 500 meters away from it - try finding a driveable road with no obstacles at that distance. There is no people or large animals. There is not even curb to hit.
Importantly, I bet there are no legacy vehicles in the approved routes - and I am sure they will have some sort of V2V tech to ensure that all objects in the air will transmit their position and intention.
Airplanes already broadcast their position! It's called ADS-B.
Not every airplane does that. Commercial planes mostly do, but its not mandated under all circumstances as far as I know. (Speaking for my region only)
All commercial planes have it at this point. And most part 91 airplanes (General Aviation) have it at this point. Without ADSB you cannot fly in or near class A, B, or C airspace and must stay below 10,000 feet. Which largely makes having an airplane useless for most people.
There are still airplanes flying that have no electrical system but even then some of them have retrofitted a system.
I was answering with the purposes of flight-taxis in mind. I doubt that they will fly in high altitude and deem it quite likely that they might want to pass uncontrolled airspace at some point. And if you're flying in uncontrolled airspace you just can't count on the presence of it. In fact, missing transponders are an occasional source of accidents in these spaces. There are lots of gliding enthusiasts that aren't equipped.
P.S.: Commercial planes (esp. big ones) should have hardly any contact points with flying taxis.
Open space. Fewer obstacles up there in the sky, separated by large distances. Simple trajectories. We've already had autopilot systems for decades.
More degrees of freedom, easier collision avoidance. The mechanical part is a lot harder, of course, but the "self driving" part is a lot easier. We had autopilot and auto-land in planes well before we had anything of the sort in cars.
A self driving car needs to be able to reliably drive within ~1 foot of arbitrary obstacles, recognize junk in the road, recognize people in the road, obey vague hand signals from random cops, obey every weird traffic sign in the world, obey every traffic law, and disobey signs and laws when convention requires it.
Helicopters don’t have to deal with any of that. There won’t be any random obstacles. No human drivers to contend with. No conflict between legality and practice to navigate.
everything with a mass over 1kg+- in the air, is carrying a "gps" and something that is transmitting its location, and all air traffic world wide is(theoreticaly) assigned a flight path for each trip,witha specific flight level, ie: the planning is 3d, so the density per layer, never gets very high, and there are specific paths taken to change layers, there are never any dogs, or horses, or people trying to deek, there are no signs or maps, and in case of fully automated vtol taxis, navigation will be to mm accuracy, with likely a routine to land fully autonomously on loosing the network, and a backup ballistic recovery parachute, if power is completly lost or another emergency situation occurs. and also likely is that forward speeds will be low enough, that collisions with birds will be a low probability, and rotors will likely be schrouded, keeping the idiots heads attached when determinidly trying for that gota have selfie.
This is not correct. There is no hard requirement for GPS nor anything that requires “something that transmits its location”. There is also no requirement for a flight plan or communication with ATC.
I can take off from an uncontrolled airport with no GPS, no transponder, no plan, and no radio and as long as I’m in the correct airspace I’m completely legal and within my right to do so.
There are some differences with these rules through out the world.
This is just plain wrong. With glider planes, you can fly around wherever you like (in the non-restricted airspace) and aren’t required to have ADS-B or FLARM in Europe. Most people don’t do it but you could entirely rely on visual detection to prevent collisions.
Here's an alternate source,
https://www.flyingmag.com/china-approves-passenger-operation... ("China Approves Passenger Operations With Self-Flying Electric Aircraft")
With some clearer wording on what's been approved so far,
- "Early EH216-S operations will come with heavy limitations, which EHang said it aims to lift in phases. For example, flights are restricted to Guangzhou and Hefei and must land where they lifted off[...] In other words, the EH216-S is approved for applications like out-and-back aerial tourism but not air taxi services in cities."
(I don't want to derail this thread too strongly, but the current source looks very much like AI slop. The text is egregiously LLM, and, if you zoom in [0] on the people in the backgrounds of the photos, there's some Lovecraftian horror going on with those faces!)
[0] https://engineerine.com/wp-content/webp-express/webp-images/...
An IRL Youtuber streamer recently tried one of these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQGAuf0rFLA
Might be a bit of a stretch to call these "taxi"s but anyway here's your futuristic flying car from China...
The fact that it actually exists and can be demoed is pretty impressive.
It’s mostly a legal innovation that allows that, others have moved onto a more car-like form factor
https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cx20nwlqe07o
I heard that the entire country is in a state of panic after two Xiaomi SU7 autopilot crashes. Motorways have put up signs warning drivers not to use autopilot or assisted driving. Authorities and manufacturers are now trying to explain the previous false advertising.
Tesla: "First time?"
It doesn't mention how much noise does it make. Even though it's electric, drones are usually damn noisy and annoying, and something of this size can't possibly be any better.
This is my main concern as well. The article [1] that perihelions linked to says that the approved vehicle is produced by EHang and the model is called EH216-S. A quick search yielded this Reddit thread [2] which suggests the noise level is 80dB.
[1] https://www.flyingmag.com/china-approves-passenger-operation...
[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/ehangstock/comments/mmz42r/for_anyo...
Seems as noisy as a standard helicopter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=22&v=9-Vr_Kd1W0E
> These vehicles are expected to redefine how cities tackle traffic congestion and pollution
Counterpoint: no they're not.
These sorts of very large drones may well become more popular, but they're not gonna become widespread enough to impact traffic congestion. The realistic target is becoming a moderately more popular version of helicopters for the sufficiently affluent.
Imagine the perfect city, with lots of green parks, great restaurants with outdoor seating, shops, do you think it should have noisy drones in it? Or a thousand drones?
I'd imagine rail and bicycles to be more practical.
Okay, so the ccp backdoored the things(cause of course ) and so all ot takes is some domestic terrorist load one with fuel and smash it into some party hq? Will be interesting wether thex can burry that sort of 9/11
It’s sad to see America fighting over old manufacturing jobs while China is leaping ahead.
It used to be the other way round.
I hope America goes back to its previous innovation cycle
We have helicopter rental “blade” in New York and various other cities, and similar devices to this in development. As is usually the case(and is usually to our benefit), we have an external bias, and more stringent aerospace laws. I applaud them for this but do not turn this into some “America bad” doomerism
It is both amazing and sad to see China is literally in the future compared to the US in terms of infrastructure and social development.
A trip to one of the major cities in China made it clear to me that they are ahead of the world right now. The amount of tech and the level of integration are unbelievable. In comparasion, the streets of SF, one of the crown jewels of the US technosphere, are just so "normal" I find it hard to believe.
It is the same feeling I had decades ago walking into a then-modern metropolis in the US for the first time. All the cool tech, the convenience, the upscale atmosphere, the extravagance of it all were striking. I have not felt that again for a while and I just think it can't happen again with what I am already used to now. Incredible that China managed to evoke that sense of awe in me again.
Can you tell me more? I visited Shenzhen few months ago and wasn't that astonished. Pretty normal city. Well, I was surprised about few things, like overall lack of traffic jams in the 17-million city, roads seems to be well planned, but I could just be lucky. And that's me coming from Kazakhstan, which is not exactly first-world country. Life seems kind of the same, taxi apps, map with reviews, delivery guys, etc.
Actually I'd argue that Chinese IT is slightly behind Kazakhstan, because their localization is so bad. Baidu maps does not provide English translation at all, and that seems the only proper maps for China. Most WeChat apps I tried also were Chinese-only. I'm pretty sure that every major website and application is well translated to English in my country, Chinese people seems to care very little about English, which makes it particularly hard for international visitors. I literally had to screenshot some app over and over, pasting it to Google Translate to be able to register in the some metro app, so I could actually buy tickets with app and not cash.
Also motorcycle people were absolutely crazy about road rules, like they don't care at all about anything. Auto road, pedestrian road, red light, opposite direction, anything works for them. I was seriously concerned about someone hitting me, which didn't happen, but few times it was close. Car people, on the opposite, were pretty disciplined. May be cameras don't work for motorcycles?
For me, I guess it was the experience with the public transport, the cleanliness of the city, the way everything was built to interact with your phone seamlessly and automatically once you have the local apps(at the cost of privacy, I am fully aware), and the dazzling look of it all. Everything is new and shiny and feel safe. And not just the sterile kind of clean, but one that has a vibrant life under it.
Yes, the english localization is trash. But I mean, I am in China, I am happy enough they even have some english available. I speak some other Asian languages and not sure if it was obvious, but the US also have trash translation to those languages here too.
Maybe that was the biggest difference. I can read a bit of chinese so my experience was more "the way it was meant to be" I guess? I assume it can disappoint if you expect just an upscaled Western experience there. China is big enough they don't need to cater to rich foreigners. I knew the feeling well enough when I first came to the US so I am not surprised. But maybe it is a novel experience to Westerners.
> the way everything was built to interact with your phone seamlessly and automatically once you have the local apps
This sounds so horrifying to me.
I think you used the wrong map app. Everyone in China use gaode https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AutoNavi. This is the best map app I ever seen.
The problem is the many cities in the West are objectively terrible compared to cities elsewhere in the world, so many people who don't have that global perspective come to China and think "it's so futuristic" or so, when in reality it's something that has been achieved elsewhere decades ago and China is just one in the line of a common trend. Even when others in this thread say cities like Singapore or Hong Kong are "futuristic", Singapore has been like that since the late 90s, that's not futuristic, it's rather the norm since the 2000s. Certainly those from Asia, even Southeast Asia aren't finding those cities paticularly revolutionary, if not a bit shinier.
Some Chinese Cities may try to "integrate" tech more like in Shenzhen with drone delivery, flying taxis here, or qr-code scanning or whatnot, but that's just more of gimmicks for a select few rather than fundamental lifestyle changes. Far as I would say, Tokyo is still likely the most "developed" of cities in terms of quality of life.
"The West"?
Do you mean North America? Because cities in Europe and Oceania are wildly different from the cities in North America and definitely not 'objectively terrible compared to cities elsewhere in the world' (which includes cities in Africa, which honestly aren't amazing).
Tokyo feels more retro futuristic than modern futuristic. Aside from the Shinkansen, a lot of the tech and software you interact with there feels antiquated and even borderline terrible. Meanwhile in SF there are self driving cars everywhere, tech company billboards everywhere, apps with great UX, etc.
I have not been to either for 20+ years, but Singapore or Hong Kong did not feel futuristic to me. Singapore is certainly efficiently run and clean, but at the time I definitely would have preferred living in London (or multiple smaller British cities), or Paris, or Sydney (culturally, if not geographically, western)
Singapore will always be Disneyland with the Death Penalty (early 90s) in my book. But seriously, china built outs its cities much later than the west, and they have a cyberpunk feel. But it feels like a lot of gimmicks, even Japan feels like that (they build things like Tokyo's Skytree, but it isn't very practical, and they just repeat this all over the country). If you live in a city, the basics matter, like...nice public transit, which china has built out very nicely in the last two decades.
>The problem is the many cities in the West are objectively terrible compared to cities elsewhere in the world.
If anything that's more of an American problem rather than a Western one. There's plenty nice cities in Europe.
> It is both amazing and sad to see China is literally in the future compared to the US in terms of infrastructure and social development.
To be fair, it's usually easier to build state of the art, when you start from scratch. Western countries have a big legacy they build decades ago, which has to be used and maintained for decades to justify the investment.
And as a visitor, it's also more likely to only see the fancy parts, and not be confronted with the dark parts, especially when you have a strong leader who's dedicated goal is to sell a positive view of the country.
> A trip to one of the major cities in China made it clear to me that they are ahead of the world right now
Is that a fair sample. Foreigners tend to visit the best bits of anywhere and China is a very big and varied country.
> The amount of tech and the level of integration are unbelievable.
Also dystopian as it enables government control and monitoring. In many ways China is ahead in things I do not want to happen.
What do you mean by "social development?"
> social development.
How are they ahead in this regard? Tech is one thing, but social credit scores and the level of censorship seem regressive rather than progressive to me.
> Tech is one thing, but social credit scores and the level of censorship seem regressive rather than progressive to me.
I can't stress enough how you need to do your own research on this stuff. American propaganda has depicted China as a ruthless peasant state for decades, and it's only in recent years that news like this has opened peoples' eyes to the fact that that all was a cover for the fact that they've passed us in recent decades.
https://merics.org/en/comment/chinas-social-credit-score-unt...
tl;dr: The "social credit score" is mostly myth. From the article:
>By 2019, China’s central authorities were stating explicitly that they were not happy with the idea. They issued formal clarifications that scores could not be used to penalize citizens and that only formal legal documents could serve as grounds for penalties.
Compare this to the US, in which things like DUIs on your background can be used to deny you Constitutional rights. There's no nothing exceptional about how they're doing things over there when it comes to this.
> Compare this to the US, in which things like DUIs on your background can be used to deny you Constitutional rights.
Can you elaborate on what you mean here?
There are many reports of international students having their statuses, i.e. permission to stay in the US, revoked for being involved in legal matters. The wording of the revocation is vague so nothing is certain but these students reported they have never done any crime except DUIs/DWIs/traffic incidents.
The status revocations are sudden and opaque. The students do not have an opportunity to appeal nor explain. They immediately become illegals once the decision is made and thus become subjects to detainment without due process. In practice they must immediately make arrangements to leave the US or they will risk future visa bans as them being in the country without status can also be considered violating immigration laws.
So, hypothetically, someone who came to the US for a bachelor and decided to go for a PhD, spending about 10 years here, can be forced to abandon everything in matters of days. A tricky situation, yet completely overshadowed by the tariff news and ignored by the masses.
Thanks, I hadn't heard about DUIs being used as a justification for revoking status.
(I'm all for treating DUIs seriously, but using a one time offense as justification for such serious consequences seems over the top to me; obviously the lack of transparency and due process make the whole thing much more troubling as well.)
You will be denied the rights to carry arms in many states if you have a DUI.
Given that permanent residents in the U.S. seem to have lost all of their free speech rights, and citizens aren’t far behind, I think we can call that precise issue a truce for now. Definitely other human rights/freedoms we still have over them at the moment.
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In the future in a good way or a bad way? I haven't seen or heard of any tech being used only in China that i would actually want in my city. These "air taxis" for example are way too loud
This seems to be a matter of preference. I feel awe when I visit charming old European cities with great walkability. "Modern" is great for aeroplanes but overrated for cities.
Is there hard evidence of this beyond random anecdotes? Genuinely curious as I haven't visited there.
Chinese cities like Shanghai have been world class for a long time. The last time I was there, I had a dinner with a client on the outskirts of Shanghai. I took multiple subways to reach there and found that neighborhood quite ordinary and starkly different from Shanghai itself. Of course this is also an anecdote but gives you a different perspective. I also know a few people who visit China often and they tell me the cities are definitely futuristic.
Personally I think Singapore is the most futuristic city-state in the world.
Strange comment, there’s plenty of videos of both locations on YouTube to make the comparison and I think it’s quite apt. Chinese (and other SEA) major cities definitely feel much more modern than most American cities these days. Most American metropolitan areas are quite bland/bleak outside the “beautified” green areas.
> A trip to one of the major cities in China made it clear to me that they are ahead of the world right now
Sorry, I should have been more clear, this is what I was referencing. I have been to SF recently and would agree it's not hard to make a lot of cities look better in comparison.
Have you been to SF? It’s like a zombie movie with shocking public transport. There are many nicer cities which seem futuristic compared to SF. I’ve not been to a Chinese metropolis but if you just look at some photos it wouldn’t be hard to imagine somewhere like Shenzhen being much further ahead.
SF varies widely be neighborhood. Public transport is not the final solution for SF, instead it’s driverless cars.
Actually I would enjoy a low tech, less integrated and connected experience.
I like interacting with nature, people more than swiping in an app.
I like old tramways in Lisbon more than flying taxis. I like small Greek buildings and even baroque and neoclassical architecture more than glass and metal buildings and skyscrapers.
It is also amazing and sad to see positive comments on such technological developments in China where similar developments in e.g. the USA would be lambasted on this very same site: Flying taxi drones? They'll fall out of the sky on the heads of the elderly and Musk should stay away from this. Tech and integration? Big brother getting even bigger and no I don't want Musk to be part of this. Is it just that the neighbour's grass is always greener or is there some deeper reason for the oikophobia that has become so popular, especially in 'progressive' circles?
I also notice you're mentioning SF without mentioning that this city - like so many others - has been driven into the ground by decades of mismanagement by so-called "democrats". California is on a road to nowhere while building high-speed trains to nowhere, the streets in SF only get cleaned up when the leader of the Chinese Communist party comes to visit, the place is a dump and people are leaving it in droves. It wasn't when I was there for the first time in 1979 - people on roller skates, some left-over hippies, disco really made it - but the last time I visited - 2003, for the IETF conference - the signs were already clearly visible and I was warned that the hostel I stayed in in the Tenderloin district was 'not in a safe area' and that I should not walk around the city (which I did anyway, I'm stubborn).
California should kick the "democrats" to the curb for a while, try to repair the damage they did to the place and its reputation and maybe, just maybe the "Golden State" can once again become the place of dreams it once used to be. This is not so much an endorsement of Republicans but simply a statement of fact, a single-party system nearly always leads to decline. To slightly paraphrase MC5: Kick Out The Dems! [1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvJGQ_piwI0&t=13
When I made that comparison, I did not mean to bring politics into the conversation, but I assume it is a natural direction people can take it too.
I will just say this: the issues with the US are beyond *partisan* politics. In my opinion, it is a social problem much deeper than what is shown on TVs and discussed in election campaigns. Changing the party in power will not change the situation. Until the US acknowledged these matters, it will continue on the same path it has been.
Yeah, that’s particularly funny coming from the guy who petitioned to forbid discussing politics https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43122960
Hope this doesn't take off (kek), EVs have made PRC cities increasingly tranquil, dealing with rotors would be huge step down in QoL. Fine for quick transit across water.
That said, maybe they can optimize for size:volume. it would actually be pretty good to displace delivery network from ground level. Maybe even straight to 40th storey balcony / living room delivery sometime.
Ideal use case seems like medical. Air taxi someone directly to the hospital as fast as possible.
Why not a helicopter with space to do CPR etc? As is already done...
i can certainly say i would not want to hear that daily or (or with any regularity) - yt wCm68PmmSQ8 to listen to it. still not even used to the small airport with newer air traffic routes rumbling residential neighborhoods nightly afterhours. but oh well i guess; more people seems to follow more noise and light pollution (and i dont want to abandon the quietness)
I wish to see the safety test of what happens when a blade breaks off and hits the passenger bay.
It doesn't even need to hit the passenger compartment. The partially missing, unbalanced rotor could be enough to take it out.
From the demo video, they claim it has more rotors than needed. So presumably it could detect one of them breaking and just turn it off.
Yeah, without a reinforced nacelle you could easily end up with a fatal birdstrike here. One shudders to imagine how thin that polyethylene window is...
We got 140 characters and China got flying cars.