Researchers Evaluate the Role of Flying Cars in Sustainable Mobility

Electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, known as VTOLs or flying cars, combine the convenience of a helicopter's vertical takeoff and landing with the efficient flight of an airplane. A study published in Nature Communications  on their environmental sustainability finds that they wouldn’t be suitable for short commutes. However, they could play a role in sustainable mobility for longer trips. Flying cars could be valuable in congested cities, or in places with geographical constraints, as part of a ride-share taxi service, according to the University of Michigan  study authors. The U-M researchers found that for trips of 62 miles, a fully-loaded VTOL carrying a pilot and three passengers had lower greenhouse gas emissions than ground-based cars with an average vehicle occupancy of 1.54. They also found that emissions from the VTOL were 52 percent lower than gasoline vehicles, and 6 percent lower than battery-electric vehicles.

Transcript

00:00:05 There are three types of flying cars the first ones look like helicopters just quad rotors they are very efficient at hover but not efficient at cruising the second ones are fixed wing that look like airplanes they are not efficient at hover but are efficient at cruise the third one combines a hybrid design where they have the efficient hover of a helicopter and the efficient cruise of an airplane.

00:00:33 the energy implications of takeoff and landing are inherently higher than cruise so we try to limit the time spend in takeoff and landing we try to spend as much time as possible in the efficient cruise a one person flying car had lower greenhouse emissions beyond any trips under 20 miles that was just against conventional gasoline engines we were more interested in seeing how

00:01:03 for them to really contribute to sustainability they would have to be better than electric cars battery electric vehicles what we found was that compared to the average occupancy ground based electric car a fully loaded V.T.O.L. has fewer emissions for trips longer than 60 miles We have people from all sorts of different countries on our team people from India, Korea,

00:01:31 the U.K., America, people from all sorts of different backgrounds. and we have people from all sorts of different disciplines of study so aerospace sustainability, material science So all those different perspectives help chip away at the rock and give us a better product Michigan is a hub for all things new mobility

00:01:56 M City is renowned in the space for what it's doing with connected and automated vehicles how I got my internship was through a collaboration that the center for sustainable systems here at U of M had with Ford Motor Company that's a long standing collaboration that we have continued these opportunities that we get are unique to U of M it's hard to find these opportunities elsewhere I really am grateful to U of M and

00:02:24 Ford for having given me this opportunity