Uber has made it known that it wants to launch a system of flying
cars to move people around cities, with a goal of putting demonstration
projects in place by 2020.
The ridesharing giant announced a series of partnerships
to manufacture “vertical takeoff and landing” (VTOL) vehicles and put networks
in place, a system dubbed Uber Elevate.
The partner cities working with Uber are Dubai and the
Dallas-Fort Worth metropolis in Texas.
“The goal of these partnerships is to develop a new
on-demand VTOL network to enable customers in the future to push a button and
get a high-speed flight in and around cities,” Uber said in a statement.
The announcement came at a summit held in the Dallas area
with partners in the project.
“What started as a simple question ‘why can’t I push a
button and get a ride?’ has turned, for Uber, into a passionate pursuit of the
pinnacle of urban mobility — the reduction of congestion and pollution from
transportation, giving people their time back, freeing up real estate dedicated
to parking and providing access to mobility in all corners of a city,” said
Uber chief product officer Jeff Holden.
“Urban aviation is a natural next step for Uber in this
pursuit, which is why we are working to make push a button, get a flight a
reality.”
Uber’s goal is to have the first demonstration network in
place in Dubai for the 2020 World Expo in that city, and another pilot in
Dallas the same year ahead of “full-scale operations” in the Texas region by
2023.
The announcement came a day after Silicon Valley “flying
car” startup Kitty Hawk, reportedly backed by Google co-founder Larry Page,
released a video of its airborne prototype and announced plans for deliveries
of a “personal flying machine” this year.
– Manufacturing plans –
Uber’s plans appear more ambitious, and include
partnerships with US-based Bell Helicopter, Brazilian manufacturer Embraer and
Slovenia’s Pipistrel to produce flying machines for short distance urban
operations.
“Uber’s Elevate network is an exciting opportunity for
Bell Helicopter to help transform how cities move people and products in the
future,” Bell president and chief executive Mitch Snyder said in a statement.
Embraer CEO Paulo Cesar de Souza e Silva praised the
“unique opportunity to complement the air transport knowledge of a visionary
and revolutionary ground transport company.”
The Uber plan also includes partnerships for “vertiports”
for the flyers to take off and land, along with changing stations for the
transporters, which are expected to be mainly electric-powered.
Uber’s agreement with Dubai Roads and Transport Authority
calls for a joint study into pricing models, people movement and determining
where routes should be created in the city.
“The partnership will result in everything from hover and
forward flight tests to actual flight operations in the Dubai area,” according
to a joint statement.
Uber has grown into the world’s largest venture-backed
startup, with a valuation estimated at some $68 billion despite ongoing
obstacles with regulators and taxi operators.
In addition to ridesharing in some 80 countries, Uber is
also testing self-driving cars in three US metro areas.
Uber’s growth so far has not been dented by a series of
embarrassing disclosures about a culture of sexism, cut-throat workplace
tactics and covert use of law enforcement-evading software.
-The Guardian
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