The rental flying car project of the US online car-hailing service provider Uber has begun cooperation with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). They will jointly develop an air traffic system and manage the itinerary of the rental aircraft. In 2020, the test flight will be carried out in Los Angeles and other places.
At the Internet Summit held in Lisbon on November 8, Uber's chief product officer Jeff Holden revealed the above news and introduced the UberAir, a taxi aircraft that Uber is developing. This short-distance urban commuting will make a huge difference in people's lives. It takes an hour or two to drive and only a few minutes in the air.
This fully electric-powered aircraft can transition smoothly between vertical takeoff and vertical landing, with a flight speed of 150-200 mph. Just one boarding time to charge and fly 60 miles.
Uber plans to conduct a test flight in Los Angeles in 2020. During the test flight, it is expected to carry 4 passengers at a speed of about 200 mph (322 km/h).
Uber and NASA signed a cooperation agreement Space Act Agreement. The two parties will work together in airspace management, which paves the way for Uber to obtain more airspace management rights when operating rental aircraft in the future.
airspace is crucial to the business of renting aircraft, as this business means a comprehensive design of the entire airspace management system. Jeff Holden said that after cooperation with NASA, Uber will continue to cooperate with Federal Aviation Administration (MDA) and airports to develop a new autonomous air traffic system as soon as possible.
According to US media reports, from the perspective of regulatory measures, it is still unknown whether a taxi aircraft can be successful, because Uber's aircraft still needs to obtain a Federal Aviation Administration license when flying in the United States. The Federal Aviation Administration is a regulatory body that specifically legislates new aircraft.
On April 25, 2017, at a "flying conference" hosted by , Dallas, Uber proposed a three-year plan for the company's taxi flying car development. Under the planning at the time, Uber would launch taxi flying cars in the United States in Dallas - Fort Worth and Dubai in the UAE, and fully operated in 2023. Now, Los Angeles is the third city outside of Dallas and Dubai to join Uber's flying car program.
The construction of four aircraft landing pads in the Dallas-Fort Worth area will begin in 2018; the UAE public transport regulatory authority, which belongs to Dubai, also introduced policies to support taxi flights in August 2017. According to foreign media reports, since Dubai's regulation is not as complicated as the United States, reaching cooperation may be easier than the United States. In addition, Uber also plans to develop driverless taxi vehicles.
Previously, Uber was famous for its brutal expansion and confrontation with regulation when it developed its shared taxi business. London, UK, previously, will not renew Uber's operating license from September 30 on the grounds of security issues. Nowadays, Uber has chosen to cooperate with regulatory authorities in the development of rental aircraft.
According to Reuters on November 8 local time, Jeff Holden said in an interview, "Uber has grown a lot now and is an important company on the world stage. As a global and large company, it cannot do things like a small startup that grows wildly."
Jeff Holden said, "Combining Uber's software engineers and NASA's decades of experience in the airspace is a crucial step for Uber's flight plan."
However, according to the technology website TheVerge, there are at least 19 companies participating in the research and development of such flying taxis, and Uber is facing fierce competition. In addition to aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing and Airbus, and automakers such as Toyota , the flying car of Kitty Hawk, a startup founder of Google , is also said to be on sale later this year.
