The Idea Of Having Flying Taxis May Eventually Become A Reality In Los Angeles; Thanks To Uber And NASA

There’s no stopping for tech innovators. Driverless cars have hit the road, and now, there’s the talk about flying taxis. Uber has announced its partnership dealings with NASA to take total dominance of the transport system with flying taxis. It made this announcement in a press release that it had a ‘vision to enable customers in the future to push a button and get a high-speed flight in and around cities’.

Tests will be initiated in 2020 and by 2023 it hopes to move into full commercial operations; just enough time for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. This will ease road congestions.  Initially, the flight will have a pilot to steer the wheels, but in the future, could be automated, just like the driverless car has resumed service, according to Matthew wing and Uber spokesman.

The idea is to make the transport system very tech-friendly. Usually, flight trips are shorter than any other means but using this medium for transportation is very limited.  With flying taxis, however, things will take a new turn. For instance, it would take a supposed UberAir journey between Los Angeles’ airport and the Staple Centre arena 27 minutes; the same journey by car will take three times more.

The app will work the exact same way as the current set-up for booking an Uber ride. In line with this, the UberAir trip will be competitively priced with the standard Uber car trip. It added further that ‘the electrical vertical take-off and landing vehicles (eVTOLS) will fifer from helicopters in that they are orders of magnitude, quieter, safer, more affordable and more environmentally-friendly’ to meet its customers’ needs and ultimately evade Los Angeles’ historically bad traffic.

Uber has been on the move for this project to materialize for quite some time. Some time ago, it announced its partnership with aerospace companies in pursuit of this dream. A spokesman from NASA, JD Harrington affirmed in a mail that Uber and the space agency has signed an agreement in January but that both companies remained independent from each other.  He said further:

‘NASA has the knowledge and the expertise to help enable the industry to open this new market safely and efficiently. However, the agency is not developing flying cars or software for Uber or any other company.’

Technology invention is indeed racing to ensure that conventional automobiles become obsolete. Waymo announced this week that it had launched driverless cars who wouldn’t need human backups. If this project becomes a reality, in a matter of time, automobiles may become history.