Uber Seeks to Develop Flying Taxis for the Future

Traffic has always been a problem. We wake up early only to end up losing time. Even the convenience of taxis and other ride-hailing apps are nothing to how congested the city is, especially in the mornings. Sullied attendance records, missed dates, ending up late to meetings – frankly, we’re just tired of the consequences that come with being stuck in traffic. Whether we’re grabbing the handrails of the train or sitting like ducks inside our cars or taxis, surely the thought of flying cars or flying taxis has come to our minds a couple of times. The question is, will it remain just a thought or dream? Perhaps it’s closer to a reality than we think. Uber’s latest move brings them a step closer to the stuff of dreams: flying taxis. According to Bloomberg, the company hired a NASA engineer to help develop their flying car program. Mark Moore, an advanced aircraft engineer at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Langley Research Center, leaves his post to join Uber as the director of engineering for aviation and work on the company’s Elevate research. In their white paper published last October, Uber outlines the potential of “on-demand aviation” to help improve the worsening ground transportation congestion and give back the time people lose on commuting.

How Uber's flying cars will work

The company visualizes people taking the usual route of hailing Ubers from their homes, but with a twist. These Ubers would take them to nearby “vertiports” that would allow them to aerially travel to another vertiport near their destination. “VTOL aircraft will make use of electric propulsion so they have zero operational emissions and will likely be quiet enough to operate in cities without disturbing the neighbors,” Uber writes in their white paper. Additionally, Uber says the VTOLs can travel to any path, so the routes aren’t fixed and route-based congestion is less-prevalent. Although promising, the program would still need to tackle a lot of obstacles to make it to the market. In their white paper, the company has highlighted their “Market Feasibility Barriers” which included the “the certification process, battery technology, vehicle efficiency, vehicle performance and reliability, air traffic control, cost and affordability, safety, aircraft noise, emissions, vertiport/vertistop infrastructure in cities, and pilot training.” Moore’s interest in VTOL or Vertical Takeoff and Landing and electric propulsions may just be the key to Uber’s movement on the development of flying cars. In fact, Moore’s own research on the VTOL has inspired several bigshots like Google’s Larry Page who funded two flying car startups. “I can’t think of another company in a stronger position to be the leader for this new ecosystem and make the urban electric VTOL market real,” Moore says to Bloomberg. It is still unclear when Uber will start its conceptualization and production, but hopefully we won’t have to wait for long. As for its success, we’re crossing our fingers and hoping for the best. For a game-changer on the ride-hailing transportation industry, it’s not impossible.