There’s nothing worse than sitting in a traffic jam when you have somewhere important to be, but the days of waiting for the traffic to budge could soon be a thing of the past, thanks to a flying taxi.
Chinese firm EHang has developed a flying taxi called EHang 216, that could be ready to accept customers in just three years.
The flying taxi features 16 propellers, and can carry two passengers at impressive speeds of up to 80 miles/hour.
Yin Shijun, Chief Engineer at the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said: “We encourage the development of the unmanned aircraft industry while ensuring safety.
“EHang 216 is a passenger-grade AAV quite different from other unmanned aircraft. We will provide our strong support and help accelerate the commercialisation of this innovative air mobility solution.”
Customers would be able to request a flying taxi via an app, just as you would request a car via Uber or Lyft.
The pilotless flying taxi would then collect the passengers, who could keep track of their journey via two tablets.
EHang explained: “The dashboard is designed with two 9.7-inch tablets that enable real-time interaction and monitoring.
“The new multimedia system integrates a variety of smart technologies including travel info, media control, satellite navigation, flight media, which are displayed in different tabs for more intuitive operation.
“Additionally, the double-touchscreen design enables redundancy of the human-machine interaction system to ensure flight safety.”
While the flying taxi won’t have a physical driver, the control centre will monitor the vehicle at all times, to ensure passenger safety.
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EHang added: “In case of failure or malfunction of EHang AAVs, the command & control center can take appropriate measures to remotely control the aircraft and safely land it to a nearest available location.”
EHang will face stiff competition from several other tech giants who are racing to be the first to launch a commercial flying taxi.
Other key rivals include Uber, Boeing and even Porsche.
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