What's the news?
Is Audi serious about making an autonomous flying taxi? Well, maybe. Certainly the Ingolstadt car maker is serious enough about the idea to pair up with Airbus, to work on the idea, along with input from Italdesign. The three companies are showing off a 1/4-scale model of their concept at the Amsterdam Drone Week. It's called the Pop.Up Next project.
The idea seems simpler than some of the more sci-fi designs that have been seen before. Essentially, the car is divided into two sections. A 'gondola' part, which is where the passengers sit, and a lower sled, which is the driving section.
Fully autonomous, the driving section pulls up under a quadcopter drone-like flying vehicle, the gondola unlatches, and is attached to the drone, which then takes off. The passengers have then switched from car to helicopter without ever having had to leave their seats.
"Flying taxis are on the way. We at Audi are convinced of that," says Dr. Bernd Martens, Audi board member for sourcing and IT, and president of the Audi subsidiary Italdesign. "More and more people are moving to cities. And more and more people will be mobile thanks to automation. In future senior citizens, children, and people without a driver's license will want to use convenient robot taxis. If we succeed in making a smart allocation of traffic between roads and airspace, people and cities can benefit in equal measure."
Right now, Audi is carrying out initial trials in South America with Airbus subsidiary Voom. While it's a long way from autonomous flying drones, right now customers book helicopter flights in Mexico City or Sao Paulo, while an Audi is at the ready for the journey to or from the landing site. "Services like this help us to understand our customers' needs better. Because in the future, flying taxis will appeal to a wide range of city dwellers. With Pop.Up Next we are simultaneously exploring the boundaries of what is technically possible. The next step is for a full-size prototype to fly and drive," said Dr. Martens.
Audi's also involved with the Urban Air Mobility flying taxi project in Ingolstadt. The project is working on preparing a flying taxi test area near Audi's headquarters there, as part of the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities - which has been set up to work on public education of such new technology, and answer questions concerning battery technology, regulation, certification, and infrastructure.