Uber agrees with NASA: Flying taxis arrive from 2020
The San Francisco company presented its future new ” UberAir ” service at the Lisbon Web Summit: an urban air transport project with the aim of allowing rapid, low-cost transfers. The first cities will be Dallas, Dubai and Los Angeles.
Uber is ready to conquer the sky too. The San Francisco company, specializing in the private car transport service, has signed an agreement with NASA to launch its new UberAir project in 2020, through which it will be possible to realize a really urban air transport with the aim of to make its low-cost customers move as quickly as possible.
This was stated by Uber’s Chief Product Officer, Jeff Holden, directly on the stage of the Lisbon Web Summit, stating that the first test flights will be held in Los Angeles and that the flying cars will be able to go 200 miles per hour. Subsequent tests will be held in Dallas where specific airports will be built to make departures and arrivals in these big cities easy.
It will be made of flying taxis to be launched in the big cities and able to connect the airports with the city center clearly avoiding vehicular traffic. They will be great drones driven by a silent electric motor capable of flying the first customers in the city of Los Angeles in 2020 and then trying to get to full capacity in 2028 for the Olympics that will be held in the US town.
Each single drone can carry a maximum of 4 people and for the moment, can reach a maximum speed of 320 kilometers per hour. It will result, as said, completely electric and able to minimize its impact on air pollution.
Not only because the transport times will be clearly halved and customers will, for example, reach the Los Angeles airport from Downtown in just 27 minutes when it usually takes more than an hour and a half with a traditional taxi.
In the video launched by the company during the Lisbon Web Summit, it is possible to understand how the new UberAir service works. Passengers will only have to book their ” flight ” through the application, so at the exact moment they will have to climb onto the roof of a skyscraper where a ” skyport ” will be set up and can take off towards their destination with the small vertical take-off drones.
The American company then declared as for the ” skyport ” has already reached an agreement with Sandstone Properties, which will allow the development of these ” airports ” for the takeoff and landing of UberAir flights above its skyscrapers. The company has over 20 locations located throughout Los Angeles, which will be made available for the Uber Elevate Network.
In presenting the project, The Verge, they highlighted some issues that may arise during the use of UberAir. On the one hand, they will have to consider in the project all the safety measures that are usually taken during the classic air travel like the metal detector when boarding. On the other hand, the fact that at the moment there are no aircraft like those presented by Uber for the transport of people with vertical take-offs and above all for 4 people.
