Tag Archives: flying car

Flying Taxis May Debut in San Francisco

Don’t put those Jetsons dreams on hold just yet–a Google-related startup has eyes on launching flying taxis in San Fransicso, and they’re not kidding around.

Kitty Hawk Corp., is a three-year-old company backed by Larry Page, founder of Google and CEO of Alphabet, Google’s parent company. They say the best way to get people out of traffic is to fly them above it, and are working hard to develop a flying taxi that could do just that. Their vehicle, they say, will take off and land vertically, fly 10 feet above water, and travel at 20 miles per hour on a predetermined path–no driver needed. They’ve opened a test site in Nevada and say they’ll launch a taxi service over the San Fransisco Bay to get people out of their cars. They’ve also apparently hired lobbyists to begin working on the regulatory issues that need to be settled for their taxis to fly.

No word yet on where these vehicles will park, but we’ll keep our ears open. Read the whole story here.

Where’s My Flying Car?

Raise your hand if, as a kid, you envisioned someday flying around like one of the Jetsons in your very own airborne car. You have lots of company. But is that really ever going to happen?

Not likely, say experts–there are just too many hurdles to jump. But the concept of daily travel by air may not be so farfetched, and more than 70 companies are currently working on developing air taxis, which are along the same concept of a transportation network company vehicle only above the road instead of on it. Several regulatory agencies, including in Europe and Japan, are working on the legal frameworks necessary to let air taxis fly in heavily regulated airspace, and some companies–including Uber Elevate–say they’ll have the flying shared rides in the air by 2023.

What’s all this mean to parking and mobility? Plenty. Check out the breakdown on Bloomberg Businessweek.