Flying vehicles that can soar like helicopters could have a major role to play in the cities of the future says technology correspondent Jamie Carter.
Supercars used to be all about power and speed. Now a new car is nothing unless it can drive itself – and then take-off. Flying cars are suddenly everywhere. Supercar show Top Marques Monaco in April was graced by the PAL-V Liberty, a three-wheeler with retractable blades that can fly like a helicopter. Show-goers were also hovering around the AeroMobil Flying Car, a super-light four-wheeled electric vehicle that takes three minutes to transform into flight mode, driving or flying for 700-kilometers.
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Such flying vehicles, known as electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, are largely about urban mobility. Forget about travelling long distances; the flying car is about getting between the train station and the airport, or between city centres and suburbs. This is about making megacities work more efficiently.
The biggest megacity of them all, Tokyo, will be the scene of the debut of SkyDrive, a flying car with medals on its mind. This four-wheeler, three-blade, and one-seater may even transport the Olympic torch – and its bearer – to light the flame at the opening ceremony of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

The SkyDrive is more drone that car, as is the EHang 184, which is simultaneously an electric car and helicopter. It has eight blades and can be controlled over the cellphone network, and it could be going places very soon. Guangzhou-based EHang, better known as a maker of drones, has been contracted by Dubai, which plans to have 25 percent of all journeys within the city completed by autonomous vehicles by 2030.
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A similar concept comes in the shape of Pop.Up, a prototype from airline giant Airbus and Italdesign that’s both autonomous and electric. It’s also being promoted as a way to ease congestion. Modular, self-piloting, and fully electric, these two-seater capsules can be driven on roads before a section lifts-off vertically and flies on eight rotors. Crucially, it leaves its battery-powered ground module behind; this is about creating a smart city transport system. No-one is going to buy a Pop.Up, but you might rent one of a city-owned fleet for a single journey from a city centre railway station to an airport.

Airbus clearly thinks such vehicles have a place in the mass transit systems of tomorrow. However, there are other ambitious forms of transport being experimented with, from super-fast magnetically levitating trains (the so-called maglev, which exists so far only as a short link from Shanghai’s Pudong Airport to the city) and Hyperloop, a ‘pipeline for people’ that sends pods at high speeds using electric propulsion; it’s an idea that also looks destined for the Gulf states.
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All of these concepts are about creating what the travel industry calls both ‘automated transport’ and ‘personal travel’ where mass transit systems are not only improved but linked. While now it’s just buses and trains that are interconnected, in future we could see road, rail and air joined-up by using autonomous, electric and, yes, even flying autonomous cars.
Expect to see many more flying cars – and perhaps even Uber’s Elevate, a ‘flying taxi’ now in the works – at the World Fair 2020 in Dubai.
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