Airbus plans - fly, taxi, fly

German car manufacturers in particular are investing billions of dollars in driving their cars Future: Electrically operated, digitally networked, fully autonomous. The carmakers want to give their customers an hour's lifetime if they leave the computer behind the wheel when they stop and go.

It could also be two ... the drivers who are constantly suffering from congestion in megacities such as Sao Paulo, Moscow or Shanghai already know that. Even the greatest autonomous vehicle strolls only at walking pace from A to B. By 2030, congestion costs in Germany alone will already be 33 billion, as calculated by the Center for Economics and Business Research. Gigantic waste - despite autonomous prospects. This is exactly where Tom Enders sees his chance.

The CEO of the aviation giant Airbus wants to compete with the autonomous mobility providers - and set up the streets in addition to the taxis and buses. A car driver's dream should come true on them: always free travel. Airbus has been investing heavily in this for some time now - and has gained an ally with the Siemens group, which may also put three-digit millions in future mobility.

Which brings us to the solution of the riddle: The “City Airbus” should have its free path 150 meters above the congested streets. The revolutionary concept is based on four central details, as the group leader at the helicopter site in Donauwörth reports.

1. The drive: Here the aviators rely on the electric motor with battery operation. Because the aerial taxi is designed for a range of 50 kilometers, no huge batteries are needed. The Airbus experts have not yet officially given any further details. But it can be heard that a powerful fuel cell is favored.

A rotor at every corner, not a pilot, electrically powered - this is what the City Airbus could look like.
A rotor at every corner, not a pilot, electrically powered - this is what the City Airbus could look like.

2. The rotor: "It won't look like a helicopter today," says Wolfgang Schoder, head of the Airbus helicopter division Germany. Instead of a central rotor with long blades in the middle of the City Airbus, it will have four smaller rotors at the corners - similar to a drone.
3. Autonomy: Just like the competition on the ground, the Airbus project wants to do without a human pilot - at least in the long term. at the beginning there will probably be another person behind the wheel; but rather because it makes it easier to get approval. But more about that in a moment.
4. The “streets”: Airbus wants to campaign for cities to establish regular airways - just like the flight corridors many hundreds of meters higher for normal aircraft.

The order of the air taxi is similar to that of Uber: In an app, the traveler can book his seat to the destination. Take off at the nearest helipad; that is why Airbus sees a huge market, especially when it comes to transporting airports to city centers - with potential for more. And because of the shared taxi principle, the prices could also be like a taxi ride; only without traffic jam.

Enders plans to launch a prototype on a test site in the middle of next year - just one and a half years after the project started. And the regular start of similar Airbuses is also not a utopia: At the same time as the prototype of their air taxi, Airbus already wants to set up a “Skyways” delivery system with similar helicopters in Singapore. The parcels and parcels weighing up to 25 kilos are to be delivered to students on the campus of the university there from a special packing station. The parcels will later fly from land to ships and back.

Why is Airbus in such a hurry? Because the aviation group, like the car manufacturers, has competition from completely different industries in terms of mobility: Like Google, Apple or Tesla, Airbus is also experiencing headwinds when it comes to air taxis. The Chinese Ehang group already presented its model “184” at the beginning of this year, which can be transported by one person and is said to cost around 250.000 euros. And the Volocopter VC-200 from the Karlsruhe company E-Volo also went up in the spring. With a pilot on board.

Shared taxis on the airways over the city - this should become a reality in the next decade
Shared taxis on the airways over the city - this should become a reality in the next decade

This is also borne out by the biggest question mark so far behind the soon deployment of air taxis over the cities: autonomous drones of this size are not yet approved in this country. And whether the authorities, legislators and the public want to change this so quickly about German metropolises is very uncertain. The automakers are fighting in this country for the comparatively simple approval of autonomous driving on roads.
However, these concerns are certainly not a reason for Airbus to put off city mobility plans. "From megacities in other regions of the world, we now even get plenty of requests to cooperate with us on tests," says Wolfgang Schoder. There are probably some authorities chiefs in the mega traffic jam every day. (Peter Weißenberg / SP-X)

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