Now you can have a slightly more complicated query like, “I’m hungry for butter chicken,” and then it knows what you’re talking about. Then it can take you to curry restaurants nearby and things like that.
Michael Calore: Right.
Jeremy White: That’s the difference. I mean, it’s not much more than that. They want it to be slightly conversational, but it’s only just a little bit more so. When you talk to them about whether this is going to transform how we live with our cars and be in our cars, they don’t really have any solid answers on whether it will or not.
Michael Calore: Well, while we’re on the topic of cars, can we talk about flying cars?
Jeremy White: My favorite topic.
Michael Calore: This is not a topic that is new to you as somebody who covers CES every year.
Jeremy White: Oh, now. That’s the thing, I’ve been knocking, I’ve been doing down flying cars all my career, really. Here I am at CES and the thing I’ve written most about is a flying car.
Michael Calore: Yeah.
Jeremy White: It makes me very sad, but this is the thing, there’s about three or four flying car companies here showing their wares and they’re, “Oh, this is the thing.” Now it’s coming out, but the big one is actually a company called Supernal, which is an offshoot of the Hyundai Motor Group.
Hyundai Motor Group have Genesis, the EV brand, Genesis, they have Kia, they have the Hyundai of course, and they’ve got Supernal. Supernal is their air cab, their taxi, electric VTOL, so eVTOL, so vertical takeoff and landing. They’ve finally announced their proper concept. This is what’s going to be made apparently and in the skies in four years time.
Michael Calore: Nice. These are not quadcopters, right? They’re not just big drones.
Jeremy White: They’re not big drones. It’s not just getting in like e-hang where you just get in and it’s automated and it takes you somewhere. It’s piloted, so human pilot and then space for four passengers. But you can take out the seats and have no passengers or just two passengers. You can figure out how you like, but it flies up to 20 to 25 minutes, or 25 miles, 25 to 40 miles. It’s short journeys, and it flies at 120 miles an hour at 1,500 feet.
Michael Calore: I want one.
Jeremy White: They say it’s going to be affordable, but it just looks like something for rich people. It really does. Instead of helicopters, this is how rich people will get to and from airports or to their office blocks or their penthouses or whatever it is.
Michael Calore: The yachts.
Jeremy White: Exactly, exactly. But the design is something else. I mean, all of the rotors tilt up and down, and they don’t all tilt in the same direction. When it’s vertically taking off, they don’t all tilt upwards. The back ones tilt down, the front ones tilt up to stop the sheer forces in the fuselage. It’s incredibly quiet. It’s as quiet as, they say, I can’t quite believe this is true, but they say it’s as quiet as a dishwasher.
