One of the biggest headaches in major cities, which is traffic during rush hour, might be solved with this ambitious plan. Airbus has revealed their on-going project, which is building a self-flying taxi along with an entire traveling service that comes with it. The company claims that they could begin testing as early as 2017!
An ambitious statement like this one would go unnoticed, causing some laughs along the way, if it wasn’t made by the second largest aeronautics company in the United States (behind Boeing). According to Airbus engineer, Robin Lyasoof, “many of the technologies needed, such as batteries, motors and avionics are most the way there”, that’s why this project seems to be feasible after all.
The ZEN SERVICE
Passengers looking to avoid traffic would book a seat on a zenHOP which would later arrive in the chosen zenHUB near the passenger’s destination. You would think that riding one of these taxis would be too expensive, but fear not, zenMOVE has got you covered, since it has found other passengers looking to go where you are going, dropping the cost of the ride as low as that of a normal taxi. On top of that, no need to worry about your luggage – zenLUGGAGE takes care of that – or your security, as — wait for it — zenCYBER protects your flight against hacker attacks.
The DESIGN
Airbus is keeping the electric aircraft design under wraps, but it did release an artist perspective of what the autonomous taxis could look like.
Airbus has been working on drone related projects for a couple of years. Let’s hope that we’ll see the results of their work sooner rather than later.