Airbus Is Planning To Launch Flying Taxi Tests This Year

Airbus is the company that is hoping to introduce flying transportation to replace ground-rooted ones in the future and it would seem that it’s gearing up to test one of its prototypes this year. The company is thinking about having one passenger ride one of its air taxis in the coming months in order to see if being able to simply fly over traffic at a touch of a button is even possible.

People have been dreaming of flying cars since the concept was introduced in movies like Bladerunner way back in the 80s and Airbus has been leading the charge in actually making this a reality. In a recent conference in Munich, the company’s CEO Tom Enders expressed the intentions of Airbus to conduct an experiment involving a flying autonomous car that runs on clean energy, Reuters reports.

The experiment in question will involve just one vehicle and will transport one person over a preset course. It’s a move that Airbus and its CEO are reportedly taking “very seriously.”

It would seem that cleanliness is an issue that Enders and his company are looking into as well. Not only are they developing flying cars that will not add to the pollution that already plagues every city in the world, they also want to reduce costs involved in creating infrastructures to accommodate the growing number of land vehicles owned by private individuals.

"With flying, you don't need to pour billions into concrete bridges and roads," Enders had said in the conference.

The autonomous flying car project, titled Vahana, was actually launched a year ago during A3, ZDNet reports. Along with actually getting the technology to work, the company will also be facing regulatory challenges that are slowing progress in fields like drones and self-driving technology. Enders is optimistic that in the end, the enthusiasm behind the idea of flying cars will eventually drive society to his side of the argument.