Uber Flying Car Could Arrive in Los Angeles by 2020; Partnership With NASA Announced
Uber plans to extend its ride-hailing services to the air with a flying car that could arrive in Los Angeles by 2020. The transportation company also announced a partnership with NASA to develop traffic systems for the flying car project when it begins testing in a couple of years.
During the Web Summit technology conference in Lisbon on Nov. 8, Uber chief product officer Jeff Holden talked about the company's flying car project, called UberAir. Holden revealed that Los Angeles will be joining Dallas and Dubai as pilot cities for the company's Elevate service. The service test is expected to begin sometime in 2020.
"Technology will allow L.A. residents to literally fly over the city's historically bad traffic, giving them time back to use in far more productive ways. At scale, we expect UberAir will perform tens of thousands of flights each day across the city," Holden told USA Today.
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According to CNET, the plan for Los Angeles will involve setting up 20 flight bases, specifically in places like the Los Angeles International Airport, Downtown, Sherman Oaks and Santa Monica.
Holden explained a trip from LAX to the Staples Center downtown via an UberX would usually take an hour and 20 minutes. With UberAir, however, it would only take 27 minutes. Despite having different travel times, Uber revealed that the air taxi service will cost about the same as an UberX.
Before this happens, several challenges have to be worked through. Uber has teamed up with NASA to develop traffic management systems that would monitor sky-bound traffic and prevent accidents from happening in the air, which could have significant consequences for the urban zones below.
"UberAir will be performing far more flights over cities on a daily basis than has ever been done before. Doing this safely and efficiently is going to require a foundational change in airspace management technologies," explained Holden.
NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate recently announced its plan for Urban Air Mobility (UAM), an air passenger and cargo transportation system that is safe and efficient. The agency has been working on an Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in the National Airspace System (UAS in the NAS) project since 2011.
