Porsche will make a flying car
Luxury sports car manufacturer, Porsche is planning to develop a flying passenger vehicle.
Detlev von Platen, the company’s sales chief said in an interview with the German magazine Automobilwoche, that passengers would be able to use the cars without a pilot’s license.
It is proposed by Porsche that most operations would be automated, but they could maintain some control. Von Platen went on to say:
“That would really make sense. If I drive from [the Porsche plant in] Zuffenhausen to Stuttgart airport, I need at least half an hour, if I’m lucky. Flying would take only three and a half minutes.”
Porsche have also said that they would like to use the vehicle to enter the air taxi market. The air taxi market technically doesn’t exist yet as of yet but on-the-ground ride-sharing companies like Uber are already targeting this market.
Uber will begin urban air taxi testing in Dallas, Los Angeles, and Dubai in 2020. European aerospace company Airbus recently made an investment in a helicopter-hailing service and Boeing also acquired a company specializing in pilotless aircraft flight systems.
May sound like science-fiction right now but flying taxis may not be too far off. Volkswagen, which is Porsche’s parent company, revealed a conceptual flying car at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show called “Pop.Up.”
The vehicle, pictured below and designed in conjunction with Airbus, is a two-seater designed specifically to bypass the gridlock of city roads—a problem that everyone from Silicon Valley to the luxury auto industry is clamoring to solve.
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