Airbus on track to fly its electric aerial taxi in 2018

Airbus is trying to put its flying taxi within the air next year, confirmed CityAirbus chief engineer Marius Bebesel in the week. The schedule is on track after CityAirbus conducted successful ground tests of the electrical power system it’s using to propel the vehicle through the air.

The CityAirbus craft is a vertical take-off and landing craft that uses a four-rotor design, which would be ready to take up to four passengers on short flights in dense urban areas, with the aim of connecting major transportation hubs together with train stations and airports. It’s designed to be pilot operated at launch, however, to eventually transition to being a totally autonomous vehicle once the tech catches up.

CNBC reports that Airbus is aiming to operate the craft along fixed, predetermined routes, with top airspeeds of around eighty mph. They’ll be able to skip over the traffic that can dramatically increase travel times entering and exiting busy town transit points, which might theoretically also help alleviate ground congestion.

Short hop flights are an ideal application of battery electrical tech since that’s all that vehicles will be able to manage using fully electric power sources within the near-term. Plus, battery unit swapping or autonomous dock charging could help make it easier to make these vehicles absolutely self-flying within the future.

Source: webserveu.com