outlook | how long will it take to take a flight?
2024-09-22
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many research reports show that "flying cars" contain a lot of development opportunities, from upstream parts equipment, special materials and aircraft research and development and manufacturing, to midstream commercial services for b-end and c-end, and to downstream maintenance, cultural tourism and other industries, and have strong industrial driving force.
the most important thing at present is to reduce the cost of using flying cars as soon as possible while ensuring safety, so that they can be price competitive with other means of transportation such as airplanes and high-speed trains.
text | xiao wenfeng, ma xiaocheng, zhang chengzhe, reporters of outlook news weekly
with the continuous introduction of favorable policies, the low-altitude economy has gained unprecedented popularity both in local government planning and at the market level. among them, "flying cars" are considered to have great potential and great room for imagination.
reporters from outlook news weekly recently visited a number of representative companies and learned that "flying car"-related companies are enthusiastic about research and development and commercialization, but "air taxis" are not an easy road, and will face challenges in cost reduction and efficiency improvement, infrastructure, and safety management.
industry insiders suggest that companies should be encouraged to accelerate research and development, reduce the cost of using flying cars, improve infrastructure and industrial chains, and unleash the vitality of the low-altitude economy.
"flying cars" are popular
zhao deli, founder and president of xiaopeng huitian, said that compared with helicopters, "flying cars" are mainly powered by electricity, which has the advantages of being more environmentally friendly, low noise, and having low take-off and landing conditions.
as low-altitude economy becomes a hot topic in policy, "flying cars" have also attracted widespread attention. reporters have seen that many companies that have been deeply involved in "flying cars" have been crowded with visitors recently.
according to the experts interviewed, the low-altitude economy mainly includes three aspects. the first is the consumer-grade drone industry. the second is the combination of drones and the digital economy to form smart monitoring and smart inspection in operational areas such as agricultural plant protection, power line inspection, and meteorological monitoring. the third is logistics and manned aviation in the transportation field.
among them, the transportation field is considered by the industry to be one of the areas with the largest scale of economic value that can be created in the low-altitude economy, and "flying cars" are an important carrier for its implementation.
from low-altitude sightseeing to three-dimensional urban transportation and cross-city express delivery... "flying cars" are expected to help build smart cities, ease urban traffic pressure, and meet people's needs for a better life. at present, many cities have made efforts to lay out the "flying car" track; in the capital market, "flying cars" have become a hot topic. not only are auto giants such as gac group actively taking the lead, but also technology companies such as ehang intelligent, xiaopeng huitian, and fengfei aviation have emerged to seize the low-altitude aircraft market.
broad imagination space
on march 8, a domestically developed evtol "flying car" took off in zhujiang new town, guangzhou's central business district, and completed a round-trip flight across the pearl river in 6 minutes, passing through many famous landmarks, opening up imagination space for the commercial operation of intercity express flights and low-altitude sightseeing.
"in the past, we generally flew in sparsely populated wilderness, but today we flew over the city's central business district, showing the future of air traffic," said zhao deli.
there are endless emerging black technologies, why do "flying cars" receive so much attention and favor and become the darling of traffic?
industry insiders believe that as the land becomes increasingly congested, the sky above is a "blue ocean" that can be vigorously developed. "the low-altitude economy will give rise to a new ecology of cross-border integration. it will not only open up a track like new energy vehicles, but also the supporting infrastructure construction and air traffic control and management platforms it drives will work together to form a super-large industrial ecology that activates three-dimensional space resources." said hu huazhi, chairman of ehang intelligent technology.
according to statistics from the civil aviation administration of china, the scale of my country's low-altitude economy will exceed 500 billion yuan in 2023 and is expected to reach 2 trillion yuan in 2030.
several research reports show that "flying cars" contain a large number of development opportunities and have strong industrial driving force, from the upstream research and development and manufacturing of parts and equipment, special materials and aircraft, to the midstream commercial services for b-end and c-end, and to the downstream maintenance, cultural tourism and other industries.
the industrial chain is basically complete. "the development of the four new trends of automobiles, namely electrification, intelligence, networking and sharing, not only lays a foundation for a high-safety, low-cost and large-scale domestic supply chain for flying cars, but also reserves a large number of professional talents for the research and development and manufacturing of flying cars." when asked why the layout of flying cars began in 2021, su qingpeng, head of the flying car innovation workstation of gac research institute, said that my country has technical experience and industrial chain advantages in domestic large aircraft and intelligent networked electric vehicles, and the industry map is basically complete, which can vigorously promote the industrial process of flying cars.
favorable policies have been issued frequently. the interviewees told reporters that since the end of last year, favorable policies have been issued frequently, which have played a protective role for the emerging flying car industry.
in december last year, the "world's first unmanned manned aircraft production license" was awarded to the manned evtol independently developed and produced by ehang intelligent, making it the world's only manned evtol model that has collected a type certificate, a standard airworthiness certificate and a production license. in addition, many domestic evtol companies have achieved the first flight of prototypes and will successively conduct test flights with large loads and long ranges, which has also injected a shot in the arm for the development of the low-altitude economy industry.
"the intensity and speed of policy implementation have exceeded expectations, and the development of various industries surrounding the low-altitude economy has been much faster than expected." hu huazhi said that companies are accelerating their pace of development and making every effort to promote the layout and construction of application scenario models.
possessing leading advantages. according to the interviewees, china started in the field of evtol almost at the same time as european and american countries, and its amphibious "flying cars" are at the forefront of the world. hu huazhi introduced that china has first-mover advantages in research and development, production, airworthiness certification, establishment of operating standards, and supporting infrastructure. at present, ehang has a certain amount of orders in southeast asia, europe, and the middle east, allowing more countries to see china's advanced air transportation.
according to porsche management consulting's forecast, under the neutral forecast in 2030, my country's evtol market size will account for 25% of the world's total, occupying an important market share in the global low-altitude field.
at the xiaopeng huitian headquarters in panyu district, guangzhou, the flying car traveler x2 is performing a flight demonstration (photo taken on may 15, 2024) photo by xu jiayi/this magazine
when can i get cheap flights?
when will the much-hyped “flying car” be able to “fly” into ordinary people’s homes?
the bottom line and red line for the commercialization of "flying cars" is to ensure safety. the reporter learned that at present, there are still many details that need to be solved and improved at the technical level. "take the performance indicators of batteries as an example. at present, the upper limit of the energy density of lithium-ion batteries is 250-300wh/kg, but the industry generally believes that the ideal battery energy density of evtol needs to reach 400-500wh/kg." the interviewed experts believe that in addition to batteries, motor performance, flight control systems and other aspects need to be improved.
the implementation of "flying cars" is more of a question of how to balance technology and cost. zhao deli believes that the most important thing at present is to reduce the cost of using flying cars as soon as possible while ensuring safety, so that they are price competitive with other means of transportation such as airplanes and high-speed trains. if they are not cost-effective, "flying cars" may be limited to a small group of people, restricting the further expansion of the market.
in addition to the product level, the level of infrastructure also affects the landing of "flying cars". the interviewees said that flying cars require vertical take-off and landing airports, parking areas, terminals, communication and navigation facilities, etc. "at present, some initial standards for the design of vertical take-off and landing airports have been proposed internationally, but there is no mature and systematic solution yet." said the interviewee.
in addition, there are large gaps in low-altitude airspace management areas such as airspace allocation, route management, traffic control, flight surveillance, and risk response that need to be explored.
industry insiders believe that the development of low-altitude economy requires efforts in three aspects: r&d and manufacturing, flight operations, and infrastructure support. he xiaopeng, chairman of xiaopeng motors, and other people suggested that we refer to the experience of new energy vehicle industry policy development, formulate policy plans, and improve technology, funds, and infrastructure support. ■
