UAVOS has presented their air taxi SumoAir as an autonomous concept for vertical e-mobility.
The all-electric, tandem rotor helicopter concept consists of a five-seater passenger including the pilot cabin that can be attached to either a car or a flight module.
The helicopter will be operated both manually and autonomously. The project is a part of UAVOS’ R&D efforts to explore and understand the fundamental technologies behind electric aircraft and the urban air mobility (UAM) market.
A contraption that looked like a slick motorcycle with propellers lifted several feet off the ground
The vehicle hovered in the air, over a netted area, for four minutes.
The decades-old dream of zipping around in the sky as simply as driving on highways may be becoming less illusory.
Japan’s SkyDrive, among the myriads of “flying car” projects around the world, has carried out a successful though modest test flight with one person aboard.
In a video shown to reporters on Friday, a contraption that looked like a slick motorcycle with propellers lifted several feet off the ground, and hovered in a netted area for four minutes.
EHANG 184 AAV Manned Flight Test by EHANG CEO Mr. Hu Huazhi
A new forecast for passenger drones and the eVTOL aircraft market predicts dramatic growth over the next 10 years.
According to the new market research report from MarketsandMarkets on the “eVTOL Aircraft Market … Global Forecast to 2030”, the eVTOL aircraft market is projected to grow from USD 162 million in 2025 to USD 411 million by 2030, at a CAGR of 20.42% from 2025 to 2030.
CityAirbus is the new eVTOL being developed by Airbus’ helicopter division that aims to set the stage for a new era of intra-city travel with flying taxis.
The futuristic-looking demonstrator can carry four passengers with a range of 60 miles, traveling at 75 miles per hour.
Airbus demonstrated the eVTOL in public for the first time on July 20 during a visit by a German politician to the facility in Bavaria.
So far, Uber is sticking publicly to its stated goal of beginning limited aerial ridesharing service in its pilot cities by 2023. And at least one of its vehicle partners, Joby Aviation, remains committed to certifying and operating its electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) air taxi by 2023.
The U.S. Air Force’s Agility Prime program, which is intended to help accelerate the certification of commercial eVTOL vehicles by providing access to testing resources and a government early-adopter market, is likewise targeting the fielding of a “small handful” of vehicles in 2023.
Uber planned to conduct flight tests on an experimental vehicle over a U.S. city later in 2020 but has not provided an update on whether the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted these plans. These flights, of a piloted vehicle without passengers, are intended to demonstrate the low noise of eVTOL vehicles, which is critical to achieving the public acceptance needed to begin commercial service.
The EmbraerX Pulse features a stylish glassed-over cabin that slots into both electric car and eVTOL bodies for seamless multi-mode end-to-end transport
Here’s one we missed from several months ago: Brazilian eVTOL innovator EmbraerX put forth a fun video showing how a multi-mode 3D transport system might work, with an eVTOL air taxi carrying a detachable glassed-over cabin that it delivers straight onto a self-driving car chassis.
The coming new breed of eVTOL air taxis are nearly all, at this stage, designed to work as part of a multi-mode transport scheme. The flying taxis themselves will travel from skyport to skyport, meaning you’ll need other means to get yourself to the takeoff point and something else again at the other end for the last mile. It’s simply not practical to expect eVTOLs to drop you off right at your destination.
Companies like Uber are salivating at the thought of being able to offer the whole service as a single sale, co-ordinating a car at each end to minimize travel time, but that starts looking like a bit of an annoyance when you consider the hope is that people will use these things for the daily commute. Four taxis and two eVTOLs every day is a pain.
And so we get this concept from Embraer’s flying taxi division EmbraerX. The Pulse system has a single, shared, glassed-over luxury cabin that can click into an eVTOL airframe or clip onto a skateboard electric car chassis, something like what REE makes.
Uber has been a boon for us (especially on Saturday nights in Mumbai), helping us reach places quickly, conveniently and economically. But, they created a problem, sort of. More cars on the roads mean increased traffic in major cities.
Well, Boeing is kind of working on this matter, to find a solution. Flying taxis! Not really innovational, we know. But, we may be closer to this becoming a reality than one would think, as they successfully completed their first test flight.
A number of innovative small business aircraft are on the drawing board, but the future of these projects depends on investors and their propensity for risk
We’re on the cusp of the genesis of a new category of business travel, the ultra-short-haul market. Urban congestion is driving innovators to reach for the stars or at least as high as the layer of underutilised airspace sandwiched between the rooftops and the altitude beneath commercial airline traffic.
(CNN) — The flying motorbike is back in Dubai — and you could see the police riding one in the not-too-distant future.
A year after California-based startup Hoversurf showcased its hoverbike at tech expo GITEX in the white and green livery of the Dubai Police, the company has returned with a new model and evidence its electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle might be, well, taking off.
Making good on a deal signed in 2017, Hoversurf has now gifted Dubai Police its first serial production unit of the S3 2019 Hoverbike and has begun training officers to fly it.
Brigadier Khalid Nasser Alrazooqi, general director of Dubai Police’s artificial intelligence department, described the eVTOL vehicle as a first responder unit used to access hard to reach areas. He said he aims to have hoverbikes in action by 2020.
Boeing today unveiled a giant drone that’s capable of lifting a 500 pound payload. Calling it an “unmanned electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) cargo air vehicle (CAV) prototype,” the aerospace giant said it could serve as a precursor for future autonomous flying aircraft.
