from France
A driverless flying taxi is set to be tested this year by the aerospace group Airbus, its chief executive has announced.
"One hundred years ago, urban transport went underground. Now we have the technological wherewithal to go above ground," Airbus CEO Tom Enders told the DLD digital tech conference in Munich last week.
Mr Enders said that Airbus, which has its main offices in Blagnac, Toulouse, aims to fly a 'demonstration vehicle' by the end of the year.
That could pave the way for the vehicles to be available commercially by as early as 2021, news website 20minutes.fr reports, with the company itself saying it hoped to have a realistic demonstration vehicle operating by 2020.
Mr Enders said such technology would have to be clean to avoid further polluting congested cities, but added that taking transport to the sky would could also reduce costs for city planners.
"With flying, you don't need to pour billions into concrete bridges and roads," he said.
The so-called 'Vahana' project - named after the Hindu entity used by the gods as a vehicle - takes advantage of rapidly improving battery technology, that it says 'are now adequate for airborne applications', as well as advanced obstacle detection and avoidance technology, and low-cost, reliable avionics.
Uber, the internet-based private hire vehicle company, has also unveiled plans for airborne passenger drones to fly its users short distances around cities.
in the picture the thing has 8 engines
the french can keep em !
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