MARK: This is Seeking Delphi, Episode #27. Future Driving, Part 2: Flying Cars with Kashink
Rajashekara. I'm Mark Sackler. The future lives here.
For those of us of a certain age, our first awareness of the concept of flying cars may
have come from a TV show. The 1962 Hanna Barbera Cartoon, The Jetsons. Who could forget that
opening sequence with Goerge Jetson whisking his family off to school, shopping and work
in the family's flying car?
That was over fifty years ago. But the concept was hardly new then, in fact, the idea is
roughly a century old, as we'll find out in today's interview. Kashik Rajashekara is an
IEEE fellow and an engineering professor at the University of Houston. He's been wrting
and lecturing about--and advocating for--flying cars for decades. I put in a call to him in
his Houston office to get his take on the current state of the art. Here's what he had
to say.
MARK: Raja, welcome and thank you for joining me today.
RAJA: Thank you.
MARK: First of all, if you might, give us a little bit of your personal background how
that ties in to IEEE and the entire field of self driving cars.
RAJA: My name is Kaushik Rajashekara, I'm a professor in the department of electrical
engineering. University of Houston. i've been working in the University of Houston for the
past two years. And before that I worked for the University of Texas, Dallas for 14 years,
and before that I was chief technologist in Rolls Royce corporation working on electric
aircraft and electrification of aircraft and archictectures for hybrid electric aircraft
and that type of things. And before that for 17 years I worked for General Motors I worked
on the first General Motors electric vehicle that wsa commercialized the EV-1. The protype
vehicle became EV-1. Then I worked on a lot electric and hybrid and fuel cell vehicles.
I am also a fellow of IEEE and I have nearly completed more than 33 years of the membership
and I'm a fellow. And I closely work with the transportation electrification community,
there is a separate group of IEEE where are focus is more on the electrification of transportation.
So regarding the flying cars, I've been always interested in cars whenever I see the traffic
I wish we could have a flying car so I can pass all the other vehicles and go in front
of them. My interest arose more when I worked for Rolls Royce, there was a request for a
proposal from DARPA for a transformer vehicle--that is a flying car that could be used in Iraq
for various purposes. I don't want to go into details. That was very interesting. We wrote
a proposal, but we didn't win. So from there, I started thinking, I think we should be working
on flying cars so I started putting some specificiations and going through it and after joining the
University of Houston I asked some post-docs to continue to work on that one, we even wrote
a paper around flying cars. So I continue to explore the possible technologies for flying
cars and promote and I have given a number of lectures on flying cars and verticle take
off and landing in China, Singapore, India and many universities in the USA and Europe
also. So I'm still interested in this technology.
MARK: For those of us in the Baby Boom generation we probably first became aware of the concept
of flying cars from a TV show, The Jetsons, in the early 1960's. But that's over fifty
years ago, there have been many promises and many false starts since then. So why should
we think, why do you think, it's actually going to happen for real this time?
RAJA: You are correct. The flying car has been there for more than a hundred years , or
around 100 years. In 1917 the aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss, he built the first one. So
then a lot of other companies followed and Waldo Waterman in 1937, he was called the
father of flying cars sometimes, he demonstrated better flying cars. In the 1970s, Ford was
even thinking of selling flying cars, based on the Aerocar design, but when the price
of gasoline came down, interest in flying cars came down. So there is a lot of interest
and I agree that more than 100 years of old but what has changed now is the technology.
Now there a lot going on in the vertical takeoff and landing and there is a lot of work going
on electric aircraft and the advnancement of aviation. And advancement of automobiles.
So all these technologies that have been developed for aerospace and automotive systems can be
used for flying cars. So recently a lot of companies are working on flying cars. Basically
more than 10 or 15 companies are working on flying cars. But we need to be careful. Many
companies call verticle takeoff and landing vehicles also flying cars. They are not really
in the sense they don't go on the road at 100 KM per hour or 100 miles per hour. They
will only fly in the air. There are very few companies putting a lot of effort on real
flying cars. Which can go on the road at say 80 or 100 miles per hour and then fly in the
air for about 300 to 400 miles like that. For example Terrafugia is one such company.
Which was recently bought by a Chinese company. And Aeromobil in Slovakia and there is another
company called P A L. They are going to commercialize. So several companies are working on real flying
cars which means they can go on the road, take off, vertical take off and land, and
also fly in the air. But there are many other companies are working like Heung, Lillium,
Airbus, they are all working on mainly verticle takeoff and landing vehicle, and even Uber
is working on it. Uber air taxi, that is also verticle takeoff and landing. You go to a
certain place, and then or you'll be taken to a certain place and from there you can
take the air taxi and then go. So there is a lot of interest, so the main reason is that
the technologies are available now.
MARK: That's a perfect lead-in to the next question, because I've seen any number of
things out there touted as flying cars, that to me look like just large drones or small
helicpoters. They really don't look anything like cars. so if we're going to get to that
vehicle that does both, how do we do that? What is the technology like? Is it simply
a combination of the car and the drone or small helicopter technology, or is it perhaps
something completely different?
RAJA: No. Verticle takeoff and landing is required even for flying cars. Of course,
flying cars can be done even without the verticle takeoff and landing, for example Terrafugia
transition that was demostrated a few years ago , and is still I think they have something
running--that is not verticle takeoff and landing. So that is a flying car, which can
go on the road, you can go to a gas station and fuel it and then go to your small strip
and then take off, like a small airport. But verticle takeoff and landing technology doesn't
need, does not need all the things that are required for a real flying car. For example,
a flying car, if it has to go on the road, you need a propulsion, so you need the motors
and also the associated powered electronics and batteries and all those things, for it
has to go say 100 miles or 200 miles on the road, but that is not required for verticle
takeoff and landing. So that makes it simpler. Because what is required for the ground, is
not required for the air all the time. Then it becomes dead weight. So the earlier times,
they were designing the vehicles, the flying cars, as a modification of the existing, some
of the vehicles that were already there and tried to modify it. That is one of there reasons
it was not successful. So you need to design starting from the beginning. It has to work
like a car, and then, the wings have to folded when it is on the road. And then wings have
to be opened, once it is ready to fly. For example there is a very good video, TFX from
Terrafugia. So that is a very good demonstration of the actual flying cars. So, I think that
will be the future, based on the hybrid electic vehicle technology and they're working on
that type of technology and that will be the future. That type of vehicle, if you see the
video TFX, the Terrafugia, I think that will make a real flying car. It takes off vertically,
flies like an airplane and then lands and parks, and on the road again it goes. I think
I'm not sure exactly I think it is about 100 kilometers per hour it can go.
MARK: So just in terms of what that's going to look like, is it going to look similar
to the, vertical takeoff and landing, the drone-like things I've that can just drive----that
can also drive on the road? Or is it going to look entirely different?
RAJA: It exactly looks like a vehicle like an automobile when it is driving on the road.
And even when it is flying, it looks like a car, or an automobiel, but the wings being
unfolded. You can see the wings very clearly, actually as I'm talking to you I'm seeing
the picture of Terrafugia TFX. So wings are unfolded like any small airplane, but if you
look from the bottom, it looks like a car. So it is bascially a car with wings when it
is flying. So there are cars, like for example, the Moller International, is also working,
the other one from PAL, which they are going to commercialize by the end of this year or
ealry next year, but it is quite expensive, nearly 600K, US dollars, so that is a tri-wheel,
that means three wheels. So like in India like an auto rickshaw, it is called. A three
wheel vehicle, that is also, it can go on the road and also it can fly in the air. But
that is what I've seen in the picture, it is not a verticle takeoff and landing, but
it needs some strip of land. Maybe it can even fly from the road itself, but you need
to isolate and then it can take off. So you don't need a separate airport or a smaller
airport for takeoff. Whereas for example, Heung, that is a Chinese company, or Lillium.
They can vertically takeoff and land, but once it lands, it cannot go like a car. So
it lands on a strip, or on another vehicle, that vehicle can go. That vehicle has wheels
so that can go on the road also. So there are several versions of the verticle takeoff
and landing vehicles that are being demonstrated. And also some flying cars have also been demonstrated.
The best flying car, which doesn't have verticle takeoff and landing is the Aeromobil from
Slovakia. That is a very good vehicle. So we need to add the VTOL capability then it
will be very good..
MARK: Let's get on now to some of the logistical issues here. Everybody's favorite or un-favorite
technologist, Elon Musk, has kind of spoken out against flying cars and the whole concept.
Now obviously he maybe has some ulterior motive, obviously he is desinging electric cars with
Tesla to drive on the road, his Boring Company is making tunnels to go under the road, so
we can possibly take that with a grain of salt. But he does have some sorts of issues
do make you stop and think may be legititmate. Obviously safety is one of them. It's bad
enough to worry about somebody when your on the on the road hitting you from the left
or the right or the front or the rear, but landing on top of you is certainly an issue.
Traffic control, particularly if you have a lot of different technologies, from a lot
of different companies--that's an issue. And there may be others, but why don't you start
with addressing how we're gonna deal with things like safety and traffic control.
RAJA: Yeah, that is a very good question which many people ask me. My first quick answer
is like this. I will explain in more detail. Assume that we didn't have any vehciles on
the road. All of them were flying. Then one day somebody thinks that let us put vehicles
on the ground also. On the land. Then immediately there would have been serious objections,
that how can you put it there are so many trees, so many mountains, water, rivers, people
are walking. We cannot put a vehicles on the land, it has to be in the sky. That is what
people would ask. But now we already have vehciles running on the land with traffic
congestion and all those things. But the main thing is, if your--again I would suggest looking
and watching the video of Terrafugia TFX, there are a lot of safety aspects that are
incoroporated. For example, if something happens they have parchutes, that can drivers can
fly off. And it has to be autonomous. That is very important. It has to be controlled
in such a way that one vehicle doesn't go very near to the other vehicles, so it has
to be some type of repulsion that has to be incorporated. And invisible lanes have to
be set up. And comunication is very important technology. The communications control and
always montioring of the traffic, so a lot of things have to be done from the ground.
But to start with demonstration purpose maybe we should restrict it to medical applications
for emergency for police and others gradually all these things have to be--like safety,
communications, have to be implemented more and more, and also more standards have to
be developed. Of course there are no standards exactly for flying cars, because there are
no flying cars right now commercially. But there are a lot of saftey standards for aerospace,
lot of safety standards for automobiles. We need to combine both of them and then we need
to incorporate the technology of verticle takeoff and landing. And the landing is very
important, as you said, so it doesn't land on somebody else. So what should be done.
So all these things have to be developed over the years. Because even the computers or iPhones
for example. What we have today is very small, you put it in your pocket. About twenty years
ago it was such a big phone we used to call it a car phone. Not even a cell phone. And
so as the technology was people start using more and more of this type of vehicles, and
they find the advantage, then I think this technology will really help, because with
the help of the flying car technologies, and with the incorporation of the electric aircraft,
for long distances like Cessna Citation, business jets with 12 passenger type of things, we
don't need big airports. We don't need like Airbus 380, or 747 or even a 777, that type
of airplanes. People would prefer to take smaller airplanes and with ten or twelve people.
It will revolutionize the whole technology of transportation, once we start developing
all these technologies. Like flying cars, and electric aircraft and smaller airplanes.
Because I don't want to go with 600 people or 500 people sitting in the same airplane,
five hours or three hours in advance, so then fifty years or sixty years there may not be
any major airports or big airplanes. So this type of flying cars and smaller airplaines,
I think will be the future, and all the communications and safety problems will be gradually addressed,
and I think with so many things happening the technology advancements, I am confident
that we can achieve this type of technology in the very near future.
MARK: An interesting part of that, and you mentioned, acting autonomously, and I just
most recently completed as the first part of this future driving series, a podcast with
IEEE's Alex Wyglinski, one of the things I brought up to him which he agreed was very
important, Ford recently just in the last couple of weeks, issued a letter to the car
industry caling for some kind of universal communication language, to be used by all
the different makers. The autonomous vehicles are going to need to talk to each other to
keep there from being chaos on the roads and I would assume, and corect me if I'm wrong,
but that really is gonna apply even more so to flying cars, because chaos in three dimensions
is probalby even worse than chaos in one or two dimensions.
RAJA: That is a very good point. That is very important. Say for the automobiles, connected
car technologies, that is one car talks to other ones so that we can get rid of many
of the traffic signals and all those things, so that if the cars can talk and adjust there
speed, then we don't need so many signal lights and also it will be more safe. So when it
can be done for the vehicles on the road, with so many people and so many people and
so many obstructions then definitely it can be done for the flying cars where there are
no obstructions and its all free and connected car technology with the autonomous vehicle,
they are very important for this so that as you said, three dimensional collision is worse
than collision on the road. Even for the road vehicles, even if there is a colllsion, it
still remains on the land. But, if it happens in the air, it will fall to the ground, that
is more dangerous. So very important to have autonomous control of the flying cars, for
both as you said, for the land vehicles and also for the flying cars. For the flying cars
it is much more critical, and they are to be controlled very safely.
MARK: Let's go on to the implementation and the market. Early price tags I've seen on
these suggest that this is not a mass market item, at least not right now. Clearly that
can change in the future, but it's starting out to look like that it's only going to be
an elite flying taxi service, maybe the military, as you said maybe for health and police. When
you're talking a couple hundred thousand dollars up into the millions, this is not something
for the mass market. So, in terms of rate of deployment where do you see these popping
up first and what time frame if ever till we get to more of a mass market.
RAJA: I think to start with we should use it for emergency medical purpose, the police,
and people who are in the air like coast guard, that means they don't have to fly in the water.
Any emergency purpose we should be using these type of vehicles. But gradually the prices
will come down. For example, Tesla car, hundred thousand a hundred twenty thousand dollars
people buy. So if this can, a flying can have more advantages even then the land vehicle,
an automobile, then definitely people are willing to pay and buy. And recently there
was a study published I think, last year by University of Michigan, they said that how
many people would buy if the car price is about 500,000 or 600,000 dollars, I think
one percent said they would buy. If it is about say 200,000 or 300,000 dollars about
ten to fifteen per cent said, yes. So, as the technology advances, and more and more
people use it, and people are going to buy this technology because this will be the future.
Because there is not only convenience, one advantage we have to see, is this will really
improve the environment. Why? The environment improves because we don't have to build so
many bridges. We don't have to cut so many trees. And particularly in countries in Africa,
where there are there are plenty of natural resources, forests, we don't want to destroy
all those big forests, and keep all those animals and everything there. So if you have,
if flying cars are affordable, if they can use them then we don't have to destroy anything,
they can keep the whole landscape as it is. For example about twenty years ago we didn't--the
cell phone was not that popular. If you wanted to get a telephone line in for example in
many countries, India, China and others, you had to wait for ten years. And it was so expensive,
and it was a land line. Once the cell phone came, every person in the world in a way is
conne cted, they can call to anyplace, and even a person selling smaller things, even
a begger for example, he may have a cell phone, rather than buying some food or soemthing.
So it has become so popular people are connected. So when this type of flying cars becomes cheaper
and more and more people will fly and it will help the environment also. So that is a very
important thing. It will really change the full mode of transportation.
MARK: So, I mean, do you ever see the price, at least within the foreseeable future, in
the next 20 or 30 years, coming down to a level where there could literally be millions
of them, which I would assume, would have to be a price of 50,000 dollars or less?
RAJA: I say it will not come at 20,000 or 30,000 dollars, for example, Tesla cars are
still selling at 100,000 dollars even after more than ten years of production. Maybe around
200K for sometime. For example, I think, Terrafugia transition was I think 250K or something like
that. That is they were trying to sell. So the prices will be definitely more than 100K
for at least another 20 or 30 years. But we are now looking at a long time extending the
technology. For example, even automobiles, developed for a hundred years and it has taken
a long time. So it will take some time. Even cell phones or the mobile phones, they took
more than 20 years to the state where we are now. Computers. We used to pay 5000 or 6000
dollars at a time in the 80's, now you can buy more powerful computers costing less than
500 dollars. So, it will take time.
MARK: The stuff of science ficiton, ala the Jetsons, but maybe it's becoming science fact.
Raja, thank you so much for your time and we'll be looking forward to more of your articles
and your talks on flying cars.
RAJA: Thank you, Mark. Thanks for this opportunity and I hope we will continue to have some more
discussions on this one.
MARK: A common thread running through the first two parts of this series on future driving
is the notion of connectivity: the need for autonomous vehicles to talk to each other.
In part three we'll address intelligent traffic control with Griffin Schultz, the CEO of Rapid
Flow Technologies-- a company that is preparing for just that end. Their distributed artificially
intelligent traffic control system--currently working with conventional, manually controlled
cars--is being deployed in several communiteis with promising results and they are looking
forward to the next phase connecting their system directly to the cars, so as to communicate
with them on the road.
Links to videos and images of the flying cars mentioned in today's program are available
at www.seekingdelphi.com. Thanks to IEEE and Interprose for their help in arranging the
first two interviews in this series. A reminder that you can subscribe to these shows on YouTube,
Apple Podcasts and Player FM, and you can follow us Facebook and Twitter. Thank you
for joining me. My technical assistant is Mohammad Marouf. Until next time, I'm Mark
Sackler
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