I went in very skeptical and came out a believer that he really sees the future of transportation. Initilally, the vehicle will require a licensed pilot and a regular airport or helipad, but as it matures, non-licensed people will be able to fly it and, in the not too far future, you will have companies setting up their own helipads for employees to fly to. Some of the market ideas he suggested were very interesting. He pointed out how even highly paid Google people cannot afford a house in Silicon Valley, but they can afford a house out in the central valley or the Sierras foothills. The car has a target price of $800,000, so, if you had two or three people living in the same community in the foothills, they could split the car cost and be miles ahead with the cheaper house mortgages a 30 minute flight from the Bay Area. Or they could lease the car for their own M-F commuting and other lessees would use it for weekend jaunts to the wine country, to Monterey, or to Napa Valley. If you like going to Tahoe for the weekend in your car, you have to endure heavy traffic Friday night and leave Sunday noon to deal with the return traffic. You only get one full day in the mountains. With Aska, you can go up Saturday morning and return Sunday night and get two full days there.
I asked about collision avoidance and how people will get comfortable with flying in an autonomous vehicle. He says the car will have hundred of sensors on it for control, navigation, stability, and collision avoidance. He made an interesting analogy -- the Bay Area has about 8 million people and maybe 5 million cars, all sharing limited roadways. People are used to traveling 70-80 mph on the freeways only two feet away from another car or heavy truck. He thinks that air travel will be a lot safer than freeway travel because of the plentiful 3D room you have to maneuver around other air vehicles.
He pointed out that lots of people in their teens and 20s today don't even have drivers licenses and that this generation will be very comfortable with this new mode of travel.
The car can be full VTOL or STOL. Full VTOL uses a lot more energy and reduces your range. It is a hybrid vehicle with gasoline engines providing power (I guess driving a generator to power the electric motors).
They have a full-scale cockpit mockup and flight simulator in their showroom. They have sub-scale prototypes flying and are working on their first full-scale complete aircraft.
It was a most enlightening conversation with an Elon Musk sort of fellow.
