Chinese Flying Taxi Is Successfully Tested

Do you have a drone? That flying quadcopter with a camera or two on board that can be controlled directly from the smartphone. Most of my friends do. They have wished them for every holiday over the past few years and their wives and girlfriends gave up at some moment to please them with that precious toy.

The drones we usually have can fit a backpack or even a pocket. But what if you had a drone that could lift you up with that backpack and deliver the place you needed. No traffic jams, no speed limits, just you and a huge quadcopter that makes a direct way to the destination.

Now guess what? They do exist. And one of them has been successfully tested by Chinese company EHang right there in Nevada. Their aim is launching a service that would take a passenger out of the equation whenever there is a need for ordering a taxi.

No more rude drivers that smell like they have no clue shower even exists, no long routes that are usually made to make you pay more for the shortest trip. Just you and that self-controlled vehicle that does all the job fast and without any delays.

The drone that was tested had to make a short trip with 1 passenger aboard. The company explains that for now they are working on single-person drones that can carry up to 220 pounds, can go up 100 km/h and can fly for up to 23 minutes. This sounds good for beginners. But in future big drones that will carry up whole families will show up.

This was not the first test of flying taxis in the world. Last summer unmanned flying taxis were tested in Dubai. For now, the only problem drone developers are facing is a battery. It might sound ridiculous, but not a single country is ready to present an element that can make modern batteries last long without extra charges.

Now that Ehang is done with its initial testing, the company wants to make improvements to the flight experience to include manual piloting and an upgraded passenger experience. Ehang also faces stiff competition from other well-funded companies like Intel-backed Volocopter, which carries two passengers, and Airbus-backed Vahana, which has a longer range.

None of them is ready to give us any terms on when we will see flying vehicles in the skies above our cities. But we bet that it won’t take long. Technologies are developing too rapidly and there is a faith that our kids will experience all those benefits we could only dream of. Flying ‘cars’ is just one of them.

With such a strong competition there are chances that Ehang won’t be the first to launch this service, but we are sure they won’t miss a chance of becoming one of the leading companies with the most reliable technology and we wish them to succeed. We bet you won’t refuse of a flight or two per day whenever you need to leave your home.