The self-flying car may become more than just a figment of our imagination, as aerospace company Airbus wants to test a prototype by the end of 2017.
A year after its decision to develop autonomous flying cars, Airbus has reportedly set the first tests of a prototype autonomous flying taxi for a passenger by the end of 2017.
The company envisions a world where, at the push of a button, vehicles can fly above traffic jams. In the company's vision, anyone would be able to book autonomous air taxis using a mobile app.
“A hundred years ago urban transport went underground, but today we have the technological means to go above ground,” Airbus CEO Tom Enders said at the DLD digital technology conference in Munich.
“We are in an experimental phase, but we are taking this development very seriously.”
Enders added that these technologies should be green to avoid further pollution and congestion in cities, and that using the sky could help reduce costs for city infrastructure planners.
“With flying, we don’t need to spend billions on bridges and roads.”
The project for the first autonomous vehicle is called Vahana, and was launched in February 2016 by A3, a Silicon Valley-based subsidiary of Airbus Group. The design of the vehicle was completed in the third quarter of 2016, and in August, engineers began developing the subsystems of the prototype vehicle that will be used for testing.
While Airbus will have to overcome regulatory hurdles in the coming years (US regulators are very conservative with drones and autonomous vehicles) the company's CEO is convinced that his vision is realistic.
“I’m not a Star Wars fan, but it’s not crazy to imagine that one day our major cities will have flying cars,” Enders said in August 2016.
“In the not-so-distant future, we will use our smartphones to call a fully automated flying taxi that will land outside our door, pilotless.”
In July 2016, Airbus announced that it would use immersive 3D environments to help airlines improve cabin comfort and that it envisioned the end result from the start.
