The way we have started facing the traffic issue in big cities, many of us have started thinking about flying cars. Not anytime soon, but it will be a reality in coming years for sure. At CES 2018, Intel brought Germany-based Volocopter and demonstrated future of flying taxis.
Volocopter began working on autonomous air taxis in 2013 and it has made an impressive progress in these years. It took flight at Intel’s CES and surprised everyone. In past, it also took flight in Germany and completed an autonomous flight in Dubai.
The flying car looks like a giant drone and it uses GPS to reach the destination. The latest production from German company is Volocopter 2X. It weighs 450Kg and consists of 18 rotors. It is capable of flying up to 17 miles on a single charge with speed of 43 mph.
The company has also got permit-to-fly in Germany and they also performed flight tests in Dubai as well. So, we can expect flying taxis a reality soon in few countries. The company claims that we can expect the commercial launch of air taxis by 2020s if all goes as per plans.
For flying in the US, it will have to get permission from the Federal Aviation Administration.
