Two things here: one, hovering is actually much more energy intensive than horizontal flight. Two, a megawatt isn't that much energy in the context of aerospace. A 737 engine produces nearly 100 megawatts at peak output (the engines are rated in terms of pounds of force, so the conversion is a bit wonky).

This conclusion is... kinda absurd.

In any reasonable setup, hovering would be a rare, rare operation (like 30-60 seconds during takeoff and landing), with most of the time spent in wing-borne forward flight – which'd be _wildly_ lower power usage, more like 200-250kW tops. About ~par with staying in continuous acceleration in an EV. More for sure, but not nearly as insane as what you're pointing to.

... and this is exactly where better batteries would help – being able to hold that power level for longer so you could actually go places in earnest without untenable mass.

There is also the fairly obvious problem of safe operations in urban areas.

Rooftop helicopters were banned from Manhattan’s office buildings after a helicopter tipped over and decapitated waiting passengers, and then the blade fell to the street level where it killed another person.

Flying no matter how diminutive always has the issue of Newton's third law. This requires having large empty landing zones to be safe, or you risk having people land on you, which would hurt no matter how slowly they're coming in.

> I have been thinking this for quite a while now, electric planes will kill a lot of rail routes

Why? If you have an existing rail network, trains are bound to be cheaper than planes and can get to more places (including convenient centrally-located stations in most major metro areas).

Plus, air travel is generally miserable unless you have a private / chartered plane. Crowds, long lines, security screenings, opaque and abusive pricing models, etc. This is not something we couldn't fix, but over the past 30 years, it's gotten a lot worse, not better; electric planes don't automatically change that. In contrast, rail travel in Europe is almost universally pleasant and hassle-free.

If flying ever becomes efficient energy-wise, this may happen. However, right now, flying is very energy inefficient, so anything that doesn't need to be flown, is transported overland to save costs. A change of fuel won't change it, unless the underlying energy usage changes fundamentally.

Better batteries do not impact energy usage, only the means of energy delivery.

For high volume routes rail is best. For lower volume automated cars on the highway are more efficient than flying by enough that only the rich will fly - just like today. You can book a helicopter flight home today if you are willing to pay for all the fuel. However even at 1/10th the energy cost, a car will be vastly cheaper and so what most people will choose. We also will continue to use trucks to move freight for many of these trips, so the roads will exist either way.

There is one other issue with flying: it often isn't legal - for good reason - to fly and land where you want to be. For a 300km trip flying to an airport is fine (if there is one close - they are not evenly scattered around), but at 50km you may as well drive the whole way instead of transfer at the airport - unless you live very close to the airport (which you won't because of noise)

Rail will always be more efficient since you don't have to carry the load. I think places that never built passenger rail (Alberta has been toying with Edmonton to Calgary since they've existed) this will wipe out the need for them.

In the US, over 70% of commuter rail uses shared freight track and electric planes are not going to be moving freight.

Where have you heard of electric planes being so much more energy efficient than jets?

Your last sentence is simply not true. Helicopters are massive in terms of volume and weight, and incredibly loud. You're also assuming our current layout of everything would stay the same. Imagine if teleportation existed, do you think cities, towns, and suburbs would still look the same?

A collision is less likely in 3D than in 2D, and obviously the chicken would be delivered to you via drone rather than the inverse.

I would think the most likely use for evtol (assuming, for the sake of argument, that whatever sci-fi technology needs to be invented will be invented to make it cost effective) is autopilot flights that are currently long commutes with a lot of traffic -- ie: Suburbs to city center and back, or long cross suburb trips.

Multiple smaller rotors does seem to have a powerful simplifying ability due to redundancy and the much better responsiveness it offers.

Generally though I agree with you. Plus it will always use WAY more power than a wheeled vehicle, and have much worse failures.

Electric helicopters come with the advantage that they’re much simpler to maintain surely.

Recent history is full of examples of trains that killed air routes. Trains took 80% market share from Paris to Lyon and 100% to Brussels. Similar in Spain and Japan.