TU-TESL

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Many businesses don't seem to have much money at first sight, but as long as you put in confusing technical terms and highly rendered promotional films, it's easy to get started immediately. But there's an exception. It's an air taxi. Playing "flying" was originally just a subset of the low-altitude flight market. It doesn't sound special. President trump of the United States tried to start a business and suffered "Waterloo" as well. But when it comes to air rental today, it's tied to "future travel" in most contexts. Is it the kind of sci-fi smart aircraft in "blade killer"? It sounds like cyberpunk, but whether the new wine can be really intoxicating is a part of the taste of the city's commercial "cellar". Last month, the "flying car" produced by volocopter, a German company, completed its first manned test flight over Singapore's Marina Bay. This is regarded as the progress of "air taxi", the best alternative to alleviate urban traffic congestion, and the landing time line has been further drawn to 2021. As an Internet company, Uber and Lilium, another flying car company, have launched their own air taxi plans. In 2019, Melbourne, Australia, has become the third pilot city of Uber air air sharing program. For example, Bell Helicopter, an American aircraft manufacturer, launched an air taxi that is "traditional, pure and unadorned". It is a helicopter (the upper rotor is removed during the display), and there are four passenger seats in the cabin.. In 2018, Audi launched a pop. Up next concept car in cooperation with Airbus at the Geneva auto show, which looks like a combination of helicopter propeller and ordinary car. Aston Martin also launched the Volante vision concept car at the Farnborough air show. of course,. In the Great Bay area of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, airlines and technology companies, including Yihang, have also arranged "air taxi", helicopter, light aircraft, UAV and other interwoven ferry service networks, which have begun trial operation in the Pearl River Delta city cluster. At the experimental base in the suburb of Hangzhou, there are also intelligent manned aircraft on the sky. Today, more than 20 companies around the world are cutting into the "air taxi" market. It's not clear whether they can solve the problem of ground congestion. This industrial track is congested first in an unknown state. At present, it seems that the "air taxi" created by each family is different from the "seller show" and "Buyer show" of the flying car we imagined. In terms of shape and principle, the "air taxi" has not been able to break away from the pattern of helicopter. The rotor, which can be lifted up through the circular movement of the rotor shaft, is almost standard. The vahana concept map of Airbus has eight electric propellers, and the successful volocopter in the city ahead is equipped with up to 18 propellers to ensure the stability of the flight. Most of the traditional helicopters are turboshaft engines, which make a lot of noise. The take-off and landing environment needs to be specially designed. They are not suitable for large-scale commuting, but only for a few classes and needs, such as medical emergency. And "air taxi" generally uses electric motor, so it can achieve smaller volume, lower voice, and more potential to apply to urban scenes. As a result, the "air taxi" can not achieve a high capacity. At present, only one person has successfully carried out the experiment, and at most 4-6 people in the concept map. Therefore, the application of technology has become the second biggest difference between "air taxi" and helicopter. On the one hand, intelligent driving releases a precious driver's seat for the "air taxi", and at the same time, it makes it possible for it to shuttle through the city cluster with dense buildings, which is much more flexible than driving by people, and also makes multi-point and fixed-point transportation possible. The question is, is air taxi a good business? To answer this question, it seems that we can go back to the helicopter rental market of last century and see the business exploration of our predecessors. The earliest public air commuting may be traced back to the helicopter business of New York airlines in 1956. At that time, the company opened regular flights from Manhattan to New York's Kennedy Airport. It's only 10 minutes and the price is 40 dollars today. The same trip, even in a LYFT or Uber, still costs $60 to $80 today, and takes an hour or two. Does it sound tempting? Trump thinks the same. In 1989, trump shuttle, the airline named after trump, was founded. He would not continue the old route of low-cost airlines before he took over, but he started the business of high-end people. One of the services is to provide financial elites with helicopter routes from Wall Street to the airport, up to eight flights a day. Between New York and East Hampton airport, helicopters will also carry passengers to trump's casino. Rich people are willing to spend money to buy time, which is almost the golden rule in the business world. It's a pity that trump finally failed. The rich didn't activate his helicopter commuting business. In 1991, USAir took over its operation right, and the president's dream of aviation industry was cool. Can Silicon Valley do what Wall Street can't? When there was no clue about the "flying car", Uber also tried to transform the helicopter rental market with internet thinking and launched the "Netflix" service. The operator is heliflite, a helicopter leasing company. The route is still familiar to us. From Manhattan apron to Kennedy Airport in New York, the fare for each passenger is 200-225 dollars. Judging from the screenshot of social media orders, this service not only gives us a glimpse of the inflation of the US dollar, but also gives the elites of the upper city district the opportunity to show off their identities, which has not brought the opportunity of explosive growth to the "flying" market. So, let's go back to the "air taxi" market. On the VR equipment provided by air taxi to exhibitors, three virtual scenes are provided, which may represent the scene imagination of enterprises for air rental: take air taxi to leave the golf course at 6:33 a.m.; take air taxi to cross the city at 12:45 p.m. for a date; take air taxi to a grand party at 8:45 p.m. If in the ideal future, the "intelligent air taxi" with smaller volume, less noise, longer endurance and stronger autopilot stability really appears, people don't need to worry about the safety of flying tools, can the demand for flying be activated? First of all, from the perspective of niche market, the demand for air rental is more to activate and meet the "identity awareness". For saving an hour of commuting time, not only the rich people on Wall Street and Silicon Valley are not very sensitive (they can afford to rent private planes), but the ordinary people who can use cloud computers and mobile phones to handle business are not very "cold". On this basis, for the consideration of operational safety and responsibility division, if the flying car provides services in the way of public real-time leasing, then users competing for high passenger unit price will also face high customer acquisition cost in the operation. And limited by the established region and route, the customer group is relatively stable, which may further aggravate the fierce competition. Will the money burning battle of sharing travel be staged again in the air? On the other hand, "air taxi" does not have a mature security system like ground travel, but also relies on the value output of industrial chains such as apron and airport. For example, Uber's airport transfer scheme seems to cost a lot. How to coordinate with the ground and air traffic parties is also a systematic problem to be solved. The high cost of early stage construction, if the utilization rate is too low to realize mismatch and oversold in different periods of time, I'm afraid it will also face a black hole in profits. From this point of view, once capital fails to enter this field in large quantities, for example, Audi has suspended the plan, Uber has not made substantial progress, and the investment institutions focus on the start-ups of flying cars, which is more like a "wide spread net" test than a bet. Under such a basic principle, the way of technological breakthrough for the "weak, junior and helpless" air taxi is even more far away, which undoubtedly brings a layer of uncertainty to the future of the industry. From time to time, this bottle always needs to set off a little commercial aging of water flowers. Under the delicacies, it is still light and awkward, waiting for the fermentation of time.