Porsche announces flying taxi as companies revolutionize urban transport

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Porsche says it plans to build a flying passenger vehicle, joining the long list of companies aiming to usher in a new era of urban transportation.

Detlev von Platen, the sales chief of the Volkswagen sports carmaker, recently told the German magazine Automobilwoche that flying “makes sense” compared with driving if one wants to drastically reduce travel time.

Volkswagen took a concrete step toward this vision at last year’s auto show in Geneva, presenting a two-seater flying car designed by its auto designer Italdesign and Airbus.

Ride-hailing giant Uber has also joined the fray of airborne transport, announcing in November last year that it had signed a contract with NASA to take part in developing and testing systems for driverless air traffic.

Although Uber plans to introduce intra-city flying taxi services as soon as 2023, it will continue to work with aviation regulators in the US and Europe, product chief Jeff Holden told Reuters.

Meanwhile, on the ground...

While flying passenger vehicles have yet to become a common sight, self-driving cars may soon share the open road with us.

Back in September, the US House of Representatives passed legislation that could become the first national law for self-driving vehicles, containing regulations that would allow companies to put more autonomous vehicles on public roads in the country. The bill, however, has stalled in the Senate.

As the world’s largest auto market, China is also hopping on the driverless bandwagon, with a national regulator issuing licenses several days ago to carmakers allowing them to test driverless cars on a stretch of public road for the first time. Beijing’s municipal government passed a similar regulation back in December, but restricted it to designated roads over a certain time period.

Lightning underneath

Up above, on the ground, and – naturally – down below. Underground transport systems such as subways have existed for more than a hundred years, but in low-density urban areas, there is little incentive to build them. However, business magnate Elon Musk proposed a solution in 2012 that once again ignited the imaginations of many.

While stuck in traffic in Los Angeles, Musk said he came up with the idea of a high-speed mode of underground transport, which he dubbed the “Hyperloop.”

The concept behind the futuristic transport system would have passengers get into autonomous electric pods that could travel more than 600 miles (965 kilometers) per hour, speeds that could whisk a person from New York City to Washington, DC, in half an hour, Musk claims.

He highlighted the difficulty of building such a system due to the prohibitive cost of constructing tunnels, so he founded the Boring Company to solve the technological and financial obstacles to creating the tunnel network.

So far, the company is only in its initial stages with US regulators, as it is only allowed to dig short test tunnels in the US states of California and Maryland.

May 12, 2017: A Hyperloop One test vehicle is transported at a DevLoop track in the Nevada Desert. This photo was released on July 13, 2017. /Hyperloop One via VCG

For those wanting to transform how we travel, developing the necessary technology isn't the only obstacle, since the proposed services will be integrated with existing local transport networks. Until companies figure out how to work with officials, consumers will simply have to drive themselves.