{"id":1254,"date":"2019-12-05T16:48:03","date_gmt":"2019-12-06T00:48:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/evhnews.com\/?p=1254"},"modified":"2019-12-17T10:59:44","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T18:59:44","slug":"flying-car-leaders-talk-public-perception-at-a-secret-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/evhnews.com\/he\/2019\/12\/05\/flying-car-leaders-talk-public-perception-at-a-secret-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"Flying Car Leaders Talk Public Perception At A Secret Summit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flying Car Leaders Talk Public Perception At A Secret Summit. Image Credit: Eric Adams<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Flying Car Leaders Talk Public Perception At A Secret Summit<\/strong>
\nStory by Eric Adams \u2013 Wired<\/span><\/p>\n

At a Texas conference hosted by Ross Perot Jr., air taxi innovators focused on how to get the public onboard with their ideas.<\/p>\n

In the few short years that the modern electric air taxi movement<\/a> has been gestating\u2014launching in earnest with Uber\u2019s October 2016 proposal<\/a> for such a service\u2014attention has swirled around the key technological and policy hurdles, from battery propulsion to new aircraft designs to regulation. Little of the conversation, however, has focused on what may be the greatest enabler, or hurdle, of this new way of moving: the public.<\/p>\n

You know, the folks who\u2019ll actually be riding in these newfangled contraptions. Do they understand how they work? Will they be comfortable flying through the air in small, and eventually unmanned, vehicles? It\u2019s not enough to promise that these aircraft will be quieter<\/a> than helicopters or show off CGI animations of a typical flight. If these things are going to fill the skies, the people who today are on the ground must be onboard, metaphorically as much as literally.<\/p>\n

That was the essence of the message delivered by former Wyoming governor Matt Mead to an industry gathering at a ranch outside of Dallas last month. \u201cI tell people I\u2019m going to an eVTOL gathering and they think I mean a health conference,\u201d he said at TexasUP, an invitation-only, unannounced summit that followed a similar event<\/a> held in Arkansas last year. \u201cYou folks all live in this world and you understand it so very well. But for a lay person like myself, it\u2019s hard to get the passion. It\u2019s hard to get the excitement when you first have to explain what the letters mean. Then they say, \u2018Oh, are you talking about flying cars?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RossRoss Perot, Jr. (left) greets attendees to the summit. ADDITIONAL Resources \u2013 The Dallas Morning News >>><\/a><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Mead\u2019s point was not just that the industry needs to stamp out or standardize jargon but that doing so will help push citizens, including politicians, to support it. The public is generally good with the idea of electric air taxis, according to a study released early this year<\/a> by Airbus, though they have concerns around safety and noise. But studies have yet to gauge attitudes toward the broader impact of the technology. \u201cWe have to talk about the benefits and the realization of the dream\u2014the amount of hours saved commuting, what it would mean to the GDP, what it would mean for public safety, search and rescue, and more,\u201d Mead said. \u201cPlus, this is an opportunity to democratize our airspace, and to do it safely.\u201d<\/p>\n

I tell people I\u2019m going to an eVTOL gathering and they think I mean a health conference.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Matt Mead, former governor of Wyoming<\/strong><\/p>\n

The event was organized by aviation entrepreneurs Cyrus Sigari and Ben Marcus and hosted by Ross Perot Jr. Perot took the opportunity to talk up Alliance, Texas, a planned development he created north of Dallas that includes the nation\u2019s first airport that\u2019s entirely without conventional passenger service. It instead provides business aviation and cargo service for companies with large facilities in town, including Amazon, Craftsman, FedEx, and Facebook. Perot pitched is as a testing ground for new aircraft and a source of early customers for commercial eVTOL services. That could mean moving personnel and supplies or, as would be the case with BNSF Railway, to inspect and maintain sprawling infrastructure. (Uber is also targeting Dallas as an early test site for an air taxi pilot.)<\/p>\n

The conference featured a motivational talk by former President George W. Bush. Former Tesla CTO JB Straubel talked about the challenge of bringing new technology into a wider public conversation. And there was plenty of fresh tech to see: Cuberg\u2019s Richard Wang discussed his company\u2019s 70 percent improvement in lithium-ion battery capacity, Near Earth Autonomy talked up autonomous control advances, Skyports argued that well-designed passenger terminals can generate a sense of both excitement and familiarity in the public, and more.<\/p>\n

On the conference\u2019s unofficial theme\u2014how to bring the public onboard\u2014the most impressive speaker may have been Ken Dial, whose University of Montana Flight Laboratory<\/a> studies bird flight in order to improve human aviation. He wanted to hit on the wonder of flight, a sentiment easily lost in business-focused conversations, but that could inspire a wary public to take a flight. So he talked about the little understood capability of certain predatory birds to keep their heads perfectly stabilized while homing in on prey, even as their bodies and wings gyrate. He explained the hummingbird\u2019s astonishing speed and maneuvering capability while dodging obstacles or attacks, and the bar-tailed godwit\u2019s ability to fly nonstop from Alaska to New Zealand. \u201cIf you\u2019re not impressed by that, I don\u2019t even like you,\u201d Dial said. But really, it doesn\u2019t matter what impressed the conference-goers. Their job will be to impress the public\u2014and get them to like the idea of a new way of moving through the sky.<\/p>\n

PLEASE Note: Story updated at 13:35 ET on Thursday December 5, 2019 to include the role of Cyrus Sigari and Ben Marcus<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

ADDITIONAL Resources \u2013 The Dallas Morning News >>><\/a><\/p>\n

\"EVHN<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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