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Comment by martythemaniak | Hacker News Reader

If they didn't face a tough haul, we'd all be flying in them already.

I'm very bullish on electric flight, both eVTOL (Joby, Lillium, etc) and normal planes (Eviation, etc), and these things will revolutionize transit the way we can't quite appreciate. Not only will they displace any notions of HSR in developed places like North America (it is already a non-starter, but too many people still have illusions around it), it'll also connect places with HSR-like transit which would never even be considered for a line. By being able to connect a multitude of smaller cities, it'll allow even more out-migration from cities by people with mobile jobs.

Number one risk is not technological here, it is likely plain old NIMBYism. I'm sure we'll see a set of contradictory and impossible to meet demands done in the name of "safety" but masking plain old greed, selfishness or just being a reactionary.

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If legal hurdles were more important than technological ones, we could expect to see a boom of electric flight somewhere else. Unlike technology, legal environment differs a lot across the globe, and if the technology is hopeful enough, someone will start adapting it soon. Gone are the times when all technological development was happening just in a few countries.

Electric helicopters taking off and landing in your neighborhood is not the same old NIMBYism which delayed Caltrain electrification for years. There is ample evidence for the negative health effects of persistent noise pollution, and helicopters are the worst offenders of noise pollution.

Perhaps these eVTOL planes will reduce noise to an acceptable levels, however that remains to be seen, and until they have proven they can, then I’ll believe the NIMBYs complaints.

> it'll allow even more out-migration from cities by people with mobile jobs.

This is not a good thing for the environment.

It could be a good thing. The invention of both catalytic converts and non-ozone destroying alternatives to CFCs have done great things for the environment but required large amounts of human collaboration to invent.

Making it easier for people to come together and invent / perfect new tech can have huge benefits.

It's likely that we will solve climate change through technology like carbon capture rather than simply by reducing/curtailing energy usage.

>It's likely that we will solve climate change through technology like carbon capture rather than simply by reducing/curtailing energy usage.

Maybe. But that can't be used as an excuse to not even attempt to curtail energy usage.

And I mean sure, it's possible that the agglomeration effects from such travel would 1) be more significant than what is already available via remote work over the internet, 2) be significant enough to offset the increased energy usage from the increased travel itself and building all the infrastructure for even greater sprawl, 3) result in technology that somehow solves climate change but doesn't have the same social forces against it as the technology we have today that's better than the status quo. But that's a lot of assumptions. Do you really want to bet the planet on it?

I would much rather bet the planet on technology rather than an attempt to curtail energy usage. We've never curtailed energy usage in the history of humanity. It's foolhardy to expect to reverse a trend that has persisted for millennia.

Be serious. HSR is capable of dumping half a million people per hour into stations that occupy less than 100 acres. In no way is eVTOL (which does not even exist!) a substitute good for HSR.

You know the old question "Why go to the moon instead of solving world hunger?" Well, the answer is that despite going to the moon being a incredibly hard technological problem, it is still vastly easier than solving world hunger. Likewise, eVTOLs are a very hard technological problem, but that is nothing compared to the social problems of getting new rail lines built in North America.

So yeah, I think the only unserious people are those dreaming of HSR in North America. Vast structural challenges and repeated high-profile failures don't seem to bring about any introspection or doubt, just more doubling-down. Privately built and operated eVTOLs fit smoothly into the structure of our society. Expropriating vast amounts of land to connect city centres while people live in the burbs does not fit nearly so well. Developing better batteries is vastly, vastly simpler and easier than restructuring all of society around fixed rail lines.

Interestingly, eVTOLs are likely the answer to solving world hunger. We are already able to easily cultivate more than enough calories to feed the world, the problem is efficient distribution. Cheap air-based transport could go a long way in solving the distribution problem.

Rail is just very hard to do. I’m curious if it will end up really being worth it for China. The cost of maintenance and how centralized it is seems much worse than airports. Like Boise Idaho is booming right now, right? Well, its airport can just add some terminals for costs that the local tax base can support. Want to connect it via HSR? Okay, be prepared to spent a hundred billion dollars, for a slower ride that almost always needs a transfer.

It just sounds like you are dedicated to underestimating the cost of airports and overestimating the costs of railroads. Boise is admittedly an extreme example because of its isolation, but it is within practical HSR distance of Salt Lake City, Portland, and Reno. Can't see why you'd need a transfer for any of the above. Anyway air service Boise-to-Reno has no non-stop option, either.

This is a very common mistake people make with California's SF-LA HSR. They say it costs a lot. We should just build airports. But they don't seem to know that airport capacity sufficient to provide as many trips as CAHSR will be capable of providing is estimated to cost over $300 billion, much more than the entire rail project.

If there isn’t even a flight to Reno, why would HSR make sense?

>end up really being worth it for China.

PRC air corridors are heavily congested - huge population concentrated on coastal regions + priority access for military aviation which also has to concentrate on coast for defense = massive delays for short hull trips that makes HSR come out ahead. Chinese military watchers occasionally joke that successfully invading TW and moving military aviation further out the 1st island chain would increase efficiency of domestic flights. Except there's probably some truth to it. Maintenance shouldn't be an issue, there's going to be low cost labour and extra infra capacity in PRC for a long time, even accounting for demographic concerns.

Interesting, sounds like PRC benefits from HSR in a way that even Europe or Japan don’t.

1. Due to the need to accelerate, HSR is only really good for 100 mile+ trips, beyond the range eVTOLs are being proposed for.

2. Hsr only goes point to point, stops and door to door transport isn’t really feasible, and those last couple of miles take a lot of the time.

3. HSR is extraordinarily expensive in infrastructure costs and most city pairs don’t have the passenger volume to justify it.

The USA has a unique impediment when it comes to HSR. In other countries the economics work not because they are selling tickets but because it frees up the conventional lines to be dedicated to cargo. In the USA most lines are privately owned and dedicated to cargo already.

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