Airbus plans to test flying car this year

Cities are growing worldwide and traffic as we know it will only get worse. Airbus Group’s urban air mobility division predicts that by 2030, 60% of the population will live in cities, up from 50% today.

The company hopes to have a working prototype of a self-driving flying car by the year's end, CEO Tom Enders said at the DLD conference in Munich on Monday, reports Reuters.

Enders said new paradigms for electric-powered aerial transportation could reduce urban pollution and congestion, and reduce the need for new infrastructure. “With flying, you don’t need to pour billions into concrete bridges and roads,” Reuters quoted him as saying.

“One hundred years ago, urban transport went underground, now we have the technological wherewithal to go above ground. We are in an experimentation phase, we take this development very seriously. With flying, you don’t need to pour billions into concrete bridges and roads.” In addition to flying a single-passenger demonstrator by the end of the year, Enders said Airbus hopes to have a production aircraft for short flights developed by 2021.

Calling on the corporate experience with commercial helicopters and making the most of emerging autonomous driving and artificial intelligence technologies, Enders continued, “If we ignore these developments, we will be pushed out of important segments of the business.”

A spokesman for Airbus declined to say how much the company was investing in urban mobility.