Flying taxis are the new hot topic now a days. Every city wants them and a whole lot of companies are working hard to be the first to provide them. Added into the mixture is the word “autonomous” that when put into operation, promises to make travel safe, fast, exciting and automatic. Along the same, Dubai has surprised everyone by announcing that flying taxis could become operational as early as this summer.
At the World Government Summit, Dubai’s Roads & Transportation Agency lead announced that operation of flying taxis will commence from as early as July, this year. The passenger service is expected to kick off along an operation plan that has already been decided upon and the Ehang 184 autonomous quad-opener electric drone is the vehicle that is expected to start taking people to their destination through Dubai’s skies.
In case you are unaware of it, the Ehang 184 is a single passenger drone that can go for 31 miles on a single charge. The vehicle has a maximum carrying capacity of around 220 pounds and can reach a top speed of 100 miles per hour. The drones will be operated, monitored and controlled through a single command center. Interestingly, the government says that it has already started testing the drones by flying them on trips — although, it wasn’t clarified if these trips had passengers in the vehicle.
Meanwhile, this marks a very interesting contrast between the modus operandi of government and private entities. We have been hearing about Airbus, Uber and a host of other companies that are planning to start autonomous self-driving cars services. However, they have yet to create test vehicles. And here we have Dubai’s Roads & Transportation Agency, that is already on the test stage and is now planning to launch a full fledged transportation service.
Meanwhile, Dubai appears to be on the verge of playing host of some of the most futuristic modes of transportation in existence — or not quite in existence yet. Apart from these flying cars, Dubai is also playing host to Hyperloop One’s tech-intensive transportation systems.
Meanwhile, you can watch the Ehang 184 vehicle in action right below:
Meanwhile, if you want to but a place in Dubai, best do it now. With the introduction of these futuristics transport technologies in the city, I bet real estate is prices are going to shoot up. Not that they were low in the first place.
