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NEC's passenger drone takes a short test flight in Japan
Japan is eager to become a leader in the passenger drone industry. NEC Corp nudged the nation a step closer to that goal Monday with a demo of a people-carrying quadcopter, which stayed in the air for about a minute. The company operated the flight inside a safety cage at a test facility in Abiko, a Tokyo suburb.
Japan teams up with Uber, Airbus and 19 others on flying taxi plan
Japan wants to bring flying taxis into the mainstream over the next decade and it's putting together a government-led group in order to do so, Bloomberg reports. The country's trade ministry said to today that the group will bring together at least 21 businesses including Uber, Boeing, Airbus, Japan Airlines and Toyota-backed Cartivator, which will meet next week to discuss plans going forward. For its part, the government will work on ways to regulate these sorts of vehicles. "The Japanese government will provide appropriate support to help realize the concept of flying cars, such as creation of acceptable rules," the ministry said.
Terrafugia's first flying car should finally go on sale in 2019
Terrafugia's Transition flying car has been in development purgatory for years, but it's finally here... almost. The company has announced that the first production models of the Transition will go on sale sometime in 2019. While that does sound like a long way off, it does provide a more concrete release window than you've had in the past. And if it's any consolation, the finished machine will have some useful improvements in return for the extra months of waiting.
Aston Martin’s Volante Vision is a luxurious flying taxi
Aston Martin is the latest luxury car company to express interest in creating a personal aerial vehicle. Today, the company unveiled its plans for a "flying car," a three-seat aircraft called the Volante Vision Concept. The hypothetical concept craft's design will make its debut at the Farnborough Air Show this month.
Opener is the latest startup to reveal plans for a personal aircraft
The race to build a "flying car" has just become more crowded. This week, the Canadian company Opener revealed its new vehicle, called BlackFly. The one-person aircraft can travel up to 25 miles at a speed of 62 miles per hour. Because the operations are a simple joystick, according to the release BlackFly shouldn't require a pilot's license, though operators will require training.
Germany plans to test Airbus and Audi's flying taxi concept
The Pop.Up Next flying taxi from Airbus and Audi should soon become much more than a well-meaning concept. The German government has signed a letter of intent greenlighting tests for the flying taxi around Audi's home city of Ingolstadt. Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer saw the autonomous, mixed-mode transports bringing a "new dimension of mobility" and creating a "huge opportunity" for companies exploring flying car tech.
Kitty Hawk's new Flyer looks like a mix of drone and stunt plane
While the Larry Page-backed Kitty Hawk didn't make its goal to sell a flying car by the end of 2017, its newest model is more polished than the octocopter ATV prototype it debuted last April. While the Flyer, as it's still called, remains a single-seater, its latest iteration looks more like a giant drone with the pilot nestled in a formula 1 car cockpit.
Uber is building a flying taxi technology center in Paris
Uber has wildly ambitious plans to send flying taxis soaring over cities, but building them will be orders of magnitude harder than anything it has ever done. As such, the company announced that it will open a Paris lab dedicated to its Elevate program called the Advanced Technologies Center in Paris (ATCP). Uber will spend €20 million ($23.4 million) over five years to develop the AI algorithms, air traffic control and other tech necessary for the service.
Audi gives Airbus' flying taxi concept a stylish makeover
Did you think Airbus' Pop.Up flying taxi concept was a little drab? So did Audi. It teamed up with Airbus and Italdesign to unveil Pop.Up Next, a reworked version of the two-seat autonomous vehicle concept. The new version is more stylish than the mostly functional original, and borrows more than a few cues from Audi's current design language. However, it should also be more practical -- it's supposed to be "significantly" lighter than the original, which is rather important for a hybrid passenger drone.
EHang shows footage of its passenger drone in flight
EHang has been talking about its 184 passenger drone for ages, but there's been a curious absence of footage showing manned flights. Thankfully, it's rectifying that situation: the company has posted a video showing the EHang 184 in action through a series of manned tests. The clip shows both single- and double-seat models going through the paces, including extreme conditions such as typhoon-level winds, intense maneuvers and high-altitude climbs. There's a definite Blade Runner vibe -- EHang's personal vehicle like one of the sci-fi franchise's Spinners, just with rotor blades.
Volvo's parent company now owns a flying car startup
Those reports from the summer that Volvo's parent company had snapped up flying car startup Terrafugia? They were true. Geely has officially completed its acquisition of Terrafugia, turning it into a fully-owned subsidiary of the Chinese automotive giant. Terrafugia will remain based in the US and will continue working on flying cars, but it will have Geely's deep pockets and automotive experience to back it up. It's also taking on a new board of directors that includes a mix of veteran Terrafugia backers, Geely execs and Bell Helicopter's managing director for China.
Kalashnikov's next military gear might be hoverbikes
Popular Mechanics reports that a Russian defense company has developed a flying vehicle that took to the air earlier this week as manufacturers demonstrated what it can do. The hovercraft, built by Kalashnikov Concern, gets its lift from 16 sets of rotors and appears to run on battery power, not fuel. It's likely that a future version of this vehicle might be used by military as Kalashnikov is already involved in the production of guns and ammunition as well as combat vehicles and automated gun systems.
DeLorean's next car is a flying one
Paul DeLorean isn't as famous as Larry Page, Airbus or Uber, but he's competing with all three in the race to build a flying car. DeLorean does have a famous name, however, and is the nephew of the John DeLorean, maker of the eponymous sports car made famous by Back to the Future. In a profile at Wired, the youger DeLorean reveals his plans for the DeLorean DR-7, a two-seater VTOL craft for personal transport.
Toyota wants flying cars in time for the 2020 Olympics
Toyota has joined the flying car craze by backing a group working on a drone-like vehicle that would soar 10 meters (33 feet) above the ground at speeds up to 100 km/h (62 mph). The "Skydrive" is being developed by Cartivator, a startup with around 30 young volunteers working with drone expert Masafumi Miwa from Tokushima University. The aim is to get the car flying by next year and have it commercialized in time to light the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games torch.
Kitty Hawk's Flyer isn't the flying car you were promised
That flying car startup Google's Larry Page is backing? It's finally showing its hand... and the company's initial product is both more and less than what you might expect. Kitty Hawk's first publicly demonstrated vehicle, the Flyer, isn't so much the flying car of sci-fi fame as a recreational vehicle. The one-seat, propeller-driven vehicle is meant for a short flight across lake when you're at the cottage, not commuting to work -- that Jetsons-like future isn't here yet. You won't have to wait long to get it, though. Kitty Hawk expects to start selling the Flyer by the end of 2017. This will be a practical reality within months, in other words. You can already put down $100 to sign up for a $2,000 discount on the finished machine.
E-volo's electric 'air taxi' picks up passengers next year
The last time we'd heard about E-Volo's 18-rotor electric helicopter was almost a year ago to the day. The latest news out of the company is that at AERO, an aviation trade show in Germany, E-Volo revealed its latest model, the Volocopter 2X. The firm says that the advantages of this version versus previous iterations (namely, the VC200) are that it's a "consequent evolution" geared toward everyday use as an autonomous urban mobility vehicle. Translation: it could be a pilot-free, or remote-flown taxi for two.
Airbus unveils an autonomous, modular flying car concept
Flying cars face many obstacles, but one of the biggest is accommodating all the parts needed to both drive and fly -- their designs amount to big, heavy compromises. Airbus and Italdesign want to try something different. They've just unveiled the Pop.Up, an autonomous concept that uses a modular passenger capsule to switch between four-wheeled ground transport and quadcopter flight. All you do is tell the vehicle's AI where to go -- it'll snap on air or ground modules based on both the available routes and your habits. Airbus even floats the possibility of shuttling your capsule through hyperloop tubes when they're available.
Uber hires a NASA guru to help it understand flying cars
Uber is eager for the day when you can take a flying car across town, and it just landed a key hire that could help make this a reality. The company has recruited Mark Moore, NASA's technology lead for on-demand mobility, as its director of engineering for aviation. This doesn't mean that the ridesharing firm will build its own flying cars, at least not any time soon -- rather, he wants to "make this market real." That will likely involve solving technical obstacles that Uber's hardware partners face, such as extending the range of electric aircraft or reducing noise pollution.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: Flying cars and an urban underground park
The Tesla Model X is the best car in its class - but it's also prohibitively expensive with a MSRP of $83,000. That's set to change, as Tesla just launched a new version of its electric SUV that is $9,000 cheaper. If you're holding out for a flying car, you won't have to wait much longer - Aeromobile just unveiled a brand new prototype and announced plans to launch a commercial flying vehicle by 2017. The European Space Agency backed a new hypersonic plane that will be able to travel from London to Sydney in four hours flat. And a Welsh company created a truck that carries its own road surface, lays it down, and then picks it back up.
Google's Larry Page is secretly developing a flying car
Remember all of those dystopian futures where our skies are filled with grimy flying cars spewing smog across the land? The co-founder of Google is hoping to make that future a reality, at least according to Bloomberg. It's published a report claiming that Larry Page has been secretly bankrolling Zee.Aero and Kitty Hawk, two California startups working on developing a serious flying car. While the former is based on the edges of Google's Mountain View campus, Page's involvement has been considered a secret, until now.
