World companies in the car shop

In addition to self-driving techniques and electric propulsion, the development of flying cars is also one of the promising mobility directions for the (near) future. One recent development is that Italdesign and Porsche have also joined a collaboration marked by the Western European Airbus Industrie consortium to develop a new type of air taxi.

Although the flying taxi is still in the testing phase, “three-dimensional mobility” is already floating in the eyes of interested companies. That is, a combined vehicle whose modular cab cab rolls on a conventional four-wheeled chassis on city roads, but can be uncoupled and uncoupled from it, and can already fly its passengers in the air by hanging it on propeller drones. Named Pop.Up Next, the flying cabin can take a radical turn, especially in crowded metropolitan areas, with quick access to airports, Pavesche Sales Chief Detlev von Platen stressed in his daily press conference as he justified his move. On congested city roads, the sports car manufacturer’s expert said, even a lightning-fast Porsche takes hours to retreat to suburban airports, while the electric-powered, unmanned module takes just a few minutes by air taxi. Prior to Porsche’s current accession, the division of labor for the project, which was first unveiled at last year’s Geneva Motor Show, says Airbus is working on the design of the drones, the Italdesign cabin.

But Pop.Up is by no means alone in the competition for the development of flying cars. Daimler has strengthened rival German Volocopeter in the company of several other companies by unloading € 25 million. The German development team also targeted the air taxi market with a five-person vertical take-off and take-off (VTOL) construction. But competitors are far from over: the German Lilium Jet start-up is still in the market for the development of new types of airworthiness, while Li Sufu, the billionaire owner of the rapidly expanding Chinese Geely Holding, acquired American Terrafugia last year. , which promised to launch its aircraft model next year, and a VTOL vehicle by 2025. Terrafugia was founded back in 2009 by an enthusiastic group of recent graduates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with the goal of starting mass production of the electric-powered flying car.

However, the program apparently needed more capital, which explains Geely’s entry, which could already include Volvo, Proton in Malaysia, Lotus in the UK and London Taxi, among others. The competition is further enhanced by the two-seater aircraft of the Slovak company Aeromobil. As we wrote in our Centennial Idea of ​​the Flying Car at the end of last year, Aeromobil can do 900 kilometers on the road and 700 kilometers in the air with a refueling, and the machine can be adjusted, ie its wings can be folded in and out. In this way, we can see that the development of flying cars, and the use of the former as soon as possible, is a priority for several large companies.