All Set For The Future? Airbus Is Going To Test Its Futuristic Self-Driving Flying Taxi Later This Year

We live in exciting times! Airbus is gearing up to test its autonomous flying taxi later this year to take the first step towards ridding humanity of traffic jams once and for all. It may all seem like an all too real sci-fi movie, but it¡¯s not. If successful, people could actually ride the flying taxi as early as 2021!

Airbus CEO Tom Enders Talking Animatedly About Project Vahana (Reuters)

How did humanity get here so fast? It¡¯s all thanks to Airbus CEO Tom Enders and Project Vahana, the aerospace company¡¯s attempt to come up with a viable prototype for air travel within the confines of a city. Airbus has been developing the prototype self-driving, flying taxi which can seat one passenger, for sometime now, and its unique feature is its vertical take-off and landing capability. That¡¯s right - this urban flying taxi won¡¯t require a runway to shoot off into the sky!

The project is something that Airbus takes ¡°very seriously,¡± Enders told the DLD tech conference in Munich on Monday, according to Techcrunch.

airbus autonomous flying taxi prototype

The flying Airbus city taxi will reportedly use a flexible four-rotor design which can change orientation depending on whether the autonomous flying taxi is taking off, landing down or flying forward in the air. Not just concentrating on alleviating traffic jams on the road and convenience of commuting in the cities of near future, Airbus is also committed to do so without any adverse ecological impact. Therefore, the company¡¯s designing an electric motor to propel the autonomous flying taxi that it wishes to test later this year.

Airbus¡¯ Project Vahana is expected to have a final production grade version of the autonomous flying urban taxi for short, intra-city trips available by 2021. Holy moly, that¡¯s only four years from now!