We haven't though. The distinction between these aircraft and typical planes being that they don't need a runway (several of them are VTOL), and are aiming to do away with the need for a pilot. The big limiting factor for small planes have been that combination of cost, inconvenience (nearest airfield to me is far enough away to make it pointless, and most places I'd want to go to don't have an airfield nearby either), and the need for a pilot.

First when you solve all three of those, you have something that is addressing the same market.

We will see whether or not it will make sense - there's now half a dozen manufacturers at least that claims to have electric aircraft in this class that are efficient enough to be comparable with electric cars in energy use. Of course it's possible they're all wrong.

> there's now half a dozen manufacturers at least that claims to have electric aircraft in this class that are efficient enough to be comparable with electric cars in energy use.

You'd have to use a very loose concept of “comparable” for such claims to be plausible, but the personal flying vehicle market has been rife with vaporware draining the wallets of investors and enthusiasts (the latter through early sales of reservations for “imminent” models) long before “electric” was part of the usual pitch.

> You'd have to use a very loose concept of “comparable” for such claims to be plausible

There are actual flying prototypes that have gotten at least within a factor of two of electric cars, depending on respective passenger loads. How they'll come out with production models remains to be seen, and also depends greatly on average passenger counts.

People tend to overestimate how much energy flight takes - consider that both large scale commercial jets and small private aircraft are relatively comparable to cars in energy use per passenger mile, often coming out better for larger planes than cars (though admittedly largely because average passenger numbers for cars is so low).

> but the personal flying vehicle market has been rife with vaporware draining the wallets of investors and enthusiasts (the latter through early sales of reservations for “imminent” models) long before “electric” was part of the usual pitch.

That's true, and I got a good laugh of e.g. seeing a pitch from a company in this space that included the Moller SkyCar as a competitor (I'm not sure if they were serious and included it for completeness, or if it was in there as a joke; they included the year it was announced, and that it was not yet available, I'm presuming it was a joke), but there are a few significant differences: The rapidly improving energy density for batteries coupled with much simpler designs and more advanced materials allowing for lighter planes. Add in autonomous operation and the cost picture for operations changes dramatically. This to me is the biggest change: Several of them are now aiming for "Uber in the skies" rather than selling to individuals, which allows for entirely different financial tradeoffs.

At this point there are also multiple flying prototypes, which is a marked difference.

> There are actual flying prototypes that have gotten at least within a factor of two of electric cars

Linky?

> People tend to overestimate how much energy flight takes

But underestimate how much energy convenient VTOL takes.

> Linky?

This is one of the easiest accessible ones: https://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/thomson-reuters-why-20...

> During a 62-mile stretch of its historic flight, the plane used about 25 kilowatts of electricity for a total energy cost of just over $3, according to its pilot, Klaus Ohlmann. In all, the e-Genius consumed just a fifth of the energy of a typical, fuel-powered two-seater airplane.

..

I can't share the rest I have unfortunately, as while the information itself is public (I believe the source is a study by Deloitte), the document I have also contains information that is not, and I don't have a publicly available reference for the source. I'll see if I can find one.

> But underestimate how much energy convenient VTOL takes.

I don't think so. E.g. Lilium uses VTOL, but the wings (holding the electric engines) starts tilting as quickly is possible to start taking advantage of ground-effect, as everyone is of course aware that VTOL is expensive. While the power they need for that short period of time is higher than ideal, it still ends up being a negligible portion of total power consumption other than for extremely short hops.