Uber partners with NASA to make flying taxis a reality by 2020
Uber has signed a deal with NASA to bring its flying car project one step closer to reality.
Image Source: Uber
Uber has signed a deal with NASA to bring its flying car project one step closer to reality. This partnership will see the two working on a traffic management system for flying cars, which Uber hopes to begin testing in 2020.
The ride-hailing company has toyed with plans of flying taxis for a while now. Earlier this year, it hired NASA engineer Mark Moore to help develop flying car technology as part of its vision for Uber Elevate, its name for its air transport ambitions.
The announcement came at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon, and the Space Act Agreement, as the collaboration is called, is actually part of NASA’s efforts to figure out how to allow unmanned aerial systems such as low-flying drones to operate safely.
Uber’s proposed flying cars will fly at a low altitude as well, and they’re intended to be capable of taking off and landing vertically.
The company has big ambitions for its new service, which has been aptly dubbed UberAir. It announced earlier this year that it plans to bring flying taxis to cities such as Dubai and Dallas-Fort Worth, in addition to signing multiple partnerships with aeronautics research companies and real estate firms to figure out the technology and logistics behind the service.
On top of the previously announced cities, Uber also wants to trial UberAir in Los Angeles in 2020, where it expects the price of a trip to be competitive with a similar journey taken with UberX.
Uber seems confident of delivering affordable prices. Its head of product Jeff Holden has even argued that if flying taxis turned out to be only for the rich, it wouldn’t even be pursuing them.
Price will be an important factor in determining the success of UberAir, and Uber says it aims to get the service up and running before the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Still, there’s a long way before that happens. Uber’s proposed autonomous electric vehicles that can take off and land vertically don’t exist yet, and there remain significant engineering, infrastructure and regulatory hurdles to overcome.
Furthermore, the scale of Uber’s plans – it has said it plans to fly tens of thousands of flights per day in a single city – makes it seem like something straight out of a science fiction movie.
That said, there’s no denying that flying cars seem to be a topic of interest for many. At least 19 companies have flying car plans, including big names like Airbus and Boeing.
And if UberAir does take flight and scale successfully, it would just be another piece in the company’s plan to end the need for personal car ownership.
Source: CNBC
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.