16 March 2018 || 2 min read
Uber and Embraer announced a partnership in May to bring flying taxis to market by 2024, and recently at South by Southwest in Austin, TX they jointly issued a statement that their estimate has been advanced to 2023.
Uber confirmed that the planned autonomous flying taxi would travel at 150 miles per hour, six times faster than the 25 mph average of traditional Ubers in rush hour traffic. This speed difference corresponds to a 20-times cost difference, according to Uber.
Anticipating regulation complications due to the completely original nature of the proposed flying taxi, Uber and Embraer agreed that commercially – rated helicopter pilots will staff the taxis for the first “few million flight miles” until the autonomous operation of the transport can be confirmed satisfactorily safe by the FAA.
Finally, Uber estimates that the taxi has the potential to reduce rush hour traffic commute times from 2 hours in some cases to just 9 minutes.
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