US ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc and South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor have teamed up to develop electric air taxis, joining the global race to make small self-flying cars to ease urban congestion.
Global players like Germany’s Daimler, China’s Geely Automobile and Japan’s Toyota have all unveiled investments in startups that aim to deploy electric flying cars capable of vertical takeoff and landing. But there are big technological and regulatory hurdles to the plans.
Uber and Hyundai, for instance, gave widely different timelines for commercialisation, underlining these challenges.
“We’ve been making steady progress towards a goal of launching Uber Air by 2023,” Eric Allison, head of Uber Elevate, said at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
