Hyundai Motor Co. displays an electric air taxi in partnership with Uber Technologies Inc. at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020. Every year during the second week of January nearly 200,000 people gather in Las Vegas for the tech industry’s most-maligned, yet well-attended event: the consumer electronics show. Photo: Bridget Bennett/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
Uber to launch all-electric air taxi by 2023
Hyundai and Uber are turning their attention from the roads to the skies after designing a concept for a future air-taxi service.
Hyundai Motor Co. displays an electric air taxi in partnership with Uber Technologies Inc. at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020. Every year during the second week of January nearly 200,000 people gather in Las Vegas for the tech industry’s most-maligned, yet well-attended event: the consumer electronics show. Photo: Bridget Bennett/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
Hyundai and Uber announced that they were joining forces to develop an all-electric air taxi that would be part of a future “aerial ride-share network” at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this week. In fact, Eric Allison, head of Uber Elevate, said that they’ve been making steady progress toward a goal of launching Uber Air by 2023.
The New York Times reports that the two companies are looking to at the dawn of a completely new era that opens the skies above our cities. Jaiwon Shin, the head of Hyundai’s Urban Air Mobility division, said at the announcement that these air taxis will be able to fly on demand.
“Just imagine that!”
A bird, a plane or an Uber?
It is reported that the automaker showed a small-scale model on Monday and offered a virtual-reality experience. A nonfunctioning full-scale model was later on display.
According to Dezeen, they also presented designs for the ground-based infrastructure to support a flying-taxi service, run by the likes of partner Uber. This includes a “hub” structure with a landing pad on top, and an adaptive minibus that Hyundai calls the “purpose-built vehicle” (PBV).
Also electric, these PBVs could be customised to serve different functions as they ferry passengers from their pick-up point to the hub for takeoff. Hyundai suggests a coffee shop and a medical clinic as two examples.
Air transportation is ‘closer than we think’
In 2017, Uber released a video saying that air transportation is closer than we think.
“In fact, Uber Elevate has already started exploring the barriers we’ll need to overcome to make vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) a reality and bringing uberAIR to Dallas and Los Angeles by 2020.”
They released a video showing what an end-to-end flight in an uberAIR VTOL will look like.
“We’re excited to partner with some of the world’s top manufacturers, real estate developers, agencies, and cities to make this vision a reality….”
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