Ah was coming to point that out. SP, Mexico City, and a few other mega cities in LatAm are already relying on private helicopters for the ultra-rich to get around the cities. They probably have an advantage over any US market for these EVTOL vehicles as the in-city aerial regulations are already established to support this. FAA is more focused on airplanes than helicopters in the US
This also happens in the US, but it's mostly tourists rather than the super rich. In NYC we have the advocacy group "Stop The Chop" that is attempting to reduce the number of helicopter flights over expensive neighborhoods. I think it is doomed to fail; air traffic is regulated by the federal government, and I don't think they care at all. The best path is to just buy the heliport and shut it down, but I don't think anyone wants to spend that much money on it. ("If we can get it for free, yeah, screw anyone that wants to fly over our property. If we have to pay, honestly it's not that annoying." Don't tell them I said that.)
Embraer makes some very interesting mid-sized commercial planes. This piece is light on details and the price range seems crazy optimistic - can you believe you would only pay 2x or 3x what an Uber charges to fly over a city? Nevertheless, seems like a promising concept.
That remains to be proven. In theory, maintenance might eventually be cheaper. But there are still a lot of mechanical parts which will require periodic manual inspection every certain number of cycles or operating hours. Electric motors are simpler than combustion engines but eVTOL designs tend to have a lot of them for control and reliability. Crew expenses will be similar (autonomous operation with passengers is still many years away). Electricity may be cheaper than fuel, but recharging times will be critical for profitable operation.
I was at a talk given by the president of Embraer-X (that's an Embraer subsidiary that looks into these riskier ventures), and he got into the details of how they validated their business plan of using these vehicles for urban transportation.
They offered helicopter rides to one of Rio's major airports and charged R$100 per passenger (according to him, that's an accurate estimate of future prices once they make their eVTOL) at a loss just to see if there was demand. They got booked the entire year in advance.
Brazilian guy here: Embraer is in deep trouble ever since before the pandemic, when their merge deal with Boeing went south after the Max debacle. I would really like to believe otherwise, but I can only see this as vaporware intended to pump the stock price of Embraer. Flying taxi drones as an economic viable alternative, on a 3rd world country nonetheless, is a hard nut to crack. If even their helicopter taxi venture proof of concept was not being profitable, using a proven technology. How in hell will they make this drone experiment be profitable then?
As they say in there, "Brazil is the country of the future and it will always be, never the country of the present". This taxi looks like a Brazilian future: always coming, never present.
Embraer is skilled, but the manufacturing industry in Brazil is in decline. Besides, most of the money in the country is flowing into smaller towns in the countryside, following agricultural boom. Not too much need for helicopter taxis in there.
Disclaimer: I am a "viralata", a Brazilian that ran away from the country.
Yep, and it would have been tragic to see Boeing kill the last major civilian aircraft manufacturer not named Boeing or Airbus. The sector needs competition and innovation, especially at such a turning point, so Boeing going left and right sabotaging 2/3 (Bombardier, Embraer, with only Mitsubishi remaining, but they shut down their own project in the end) of the remaining manufacturers would have been criminal.
(I'm not counting COMAC because they're a decade behind and will focus on the Chinese market first, and UAC (Russia's various design bureaus) has been crippled by sanctions).
Wrong. The deal was abandoned by Boeing, as an unfolding of the 737-MAX major fiasco.
And that merge wasn't Embraer "throwing the towel": Bombardier, Embraer's direct competitor, partnered up with Airbus, getting a critical competitive advantage. It was only natural for Embraer too seek a similar partnership.
> Bombardier, Embraer's direct competitor, partnered up with Airbus, getting a critical competitive advantage
They didn't "partner up". They gave up their modern design (C-Series) to Airbus, then had a fire sale of the remaining assets like the CRJ series, all due to Boeing sabotage. Apart from Bombardier, Boeing are the other big losers from the whole debacle, because Airbus got a very good and modern design for "free" (assumes liabilities).
> On 16 October 2017, Bombardier and Airbus announced that Airbus would acquire a 50.01% majority stake in the CSALP partnership, with Bombardier keeping 31% and Investissement Québec 19%. Airbus paid no money, incurred no debt and assumed no liability for its share in the programme,
> After reassessing its participation in January 2020, Bombardier exited the A220 programme in February 2020, selling its share to Airbus for $591 million. Airbus thus owned 75% of the programme; the remaining 25% of shares were held by Investissement Québec. Under the acquisition terms Airbus acquired Bombardier's option to buy out Investissement Québec's share from 2023, with a revised option date of 2026
That's pretty much giving it (majority control) up for free, and the rest for very cheap.
> Embraer would be in trouble to compete with Airbus anyway.
To an extent, but the E2 and the C-Series aren't really in the same segment - one is a regional jet, the other is a short to medium haul one. The Embraer E2s have less capacity and range than the A220, being optimised for shorter and less dense routes, and they have absolutely zero competition in the market today.
> That's pretty much giving it (majority control) up for free, and the rest for very cheap.
It appears that Bombardier took some other financial aspects in consideration before they made that decision. I have no further knowledge, and that would be more than I'm willing to research for this discussion. Besides, this is tangential to the Embraer x Bombardier debate.
> but the E2 and the C-Series aren't really in the same segment
Indeed, but there's some overlap between the largest E2 and the smallest C-Series, while the E2 is much cheaper.
Bombardier's trains division wasn't failing, it was just that Bombardier the company was overleveradged on getting the C-Series out. What that failed, they were massively in debt, and had to do a fire sale on everything of value (CRJ, trains division).
So technically both of these statements are right.
Boeing offered to buy Embraer outright at first, Brazil’s regulators balked at handling over the family jewels, so they came up with an 80% Boeing joint venture for the commercial division. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing–Embraer_joint_venture
Really honestly, I could tell that before I finished your second paragraph. I see people around the world criticizing their own countries quite often, but afaik only Brazilians take the criticism to such a self-depreciative level.
Am Brazilian, can personally confirm. I used to do that too. I actually left the country with the explicit goal of shedding my Brazilian identity and becoming someone else entirely.
I think Brazil suffers from being a country where some segments of the population can’t find a relatable national identity. I feel very strongly about my state identity (I’m a gaucho from Rio Grande do Sul) to the point I’d probably support secession if that was a serious possibility, but I’ve never felt anything positive about being Brazilian.
Funny enough, 10 years later and now a US citizen, I don’t speak so negatively about Brazil anymore. Turns that that over time I found out I’m a bit more Brazilian than I thought, despite former efforts to not be one. Also, there are things I miss about living there, at least compared to living in the US. If it wasn’t for the still insane crime rates, I’d consider moving back for a season.
"Flying Taxi" doesn't work. Either you try to do it cheaply and regularly kill riders because your underpaid maintenance staff missed a step somewhere, or you quadruple check every speck of dust to ensure people don't regularly and predictably die but then a single ride is "I'm too rich for public transport" price.
What possible difference could change that status quo? We have commodity helicopters right now, but very few people commute anywhere by helicopter.
It's a difference if it's some random startup looking to part incompetent investors from their funds (there have been way too many of these), legit startups, or a classic aviation player.
In any case, when talking about startups, both Lilium Aviation (Munich) and Volocopter (Bruchsal) got actually flying prototypes into the air [1], and they're led by actually competent former Airbus people.
Your analogy is better than it should ever be really.
If Embraer really do launch this drone taxi service someday, it will be only to boost it's image as an aviation/inovation company, not because it would be profitable (it probably wouldn't, and it will not happen in the end).
If Tom Cruise really do get engaged to Ariana someday, it will be to boost his image as a man's man, an action star that get all the ladies (he probably never enjoyed the fruit very much, and it will never happen in the end).
Old thinking stock 100 years ago, old corporate/government structures can't get the internet. Their solutions always concern building physical things. They will never get it. A black swan event in the horizon will bring about a new structure that uses the physical world only for what is essential: health, water, food & shelter. Getting people from A to B and back is a solution from the 1900s industrial revolution that brought about cities.
https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/15/world/sao-paulo-journal-r...