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Rolls-Royce wants to build a flying taxi:
[...F]lying cars are happening again? Make up your mind! I can't handle all this uncertainty. Let's add it all up, shall we?
We have an Airbus and Audi partnership, currently trying to build a city car/flying taxi concept. We have Uber building a flying taxi hub in Paris. Then we have Kitty Hawk, a secret company founded by Google co-founder Larry Page -- it's working on a project called Cora. Yes, it's another flying taxi.
[...] But guess who else is joining the flying taxi race... Rolls-Royce.
Not the Rolls-Royce of luxury cars fame, Rolls Royce the engine company, that split from the car company decades ago.
That Rolls-Royce is looking to get into the flying taxi game and has drawn up plans to create an electric vehicle that could potentially reach speeds of 400 kilometres per hour (around 250 miles per hour). Rolls-Royce believes it could be ready to launch as early as the next decade, a timeline that's consistent with many of its potential competitors.
Wonder if they will give a special rate to Danny DeVito?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 16 2018, @10:36AM (1 child)
Yes, it is. But short-haul luxury transportation was never about making economical sense.
City-center to airport with business luggage only, 10 minutes guaranteed travel time without a chance of traffic jams, for 500€ one-way? Instead of 50 minutes plus potential holdups for 120€? That's the market they're after, not the "I'm drunk, get me home" crowd ...
After 7-8 hours of flying your human pilots (24h of them!) are paid for the day, the rest is for deprecation, operating cost and profit. Back-of-the-envelope, but sounds doable.
And in 15 years: make them fully autonomous, fire the pilots and slash 150€ off the fare. Even more profit.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday July 16 2018, @12:30PM
There's going to be lots of those once all the business travelers are able to take flying taxis to the airport.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]