Audi has Reached Sky High at The Amsterdam Drone Week

Audi together with Airbus and Italdesign has presented their 1:4 scale model prototype “Pop.Up Next” at the Amsterdam Drone Week 2018. And it is expected within the coming decade, Audi customers could make use of its flying taxi services to navigate around large cities.

“Flying taxis are on the way. We at Audi are convinced of that,” says Dr. Bernd Martens, Audi board member for sourcing and IT, and president of the Audi subsidiary Italdesign. “More and more people are moving to cities. And more and more people will be mobile thanks to automation. In the future, senior citizens, children, and people without a driver’s license will want to use convenient robot taxis. If we succeed in making a smart allocation of traffic between roads and airspace, people and cities can benefit in equal measure.”

To see what an on-demand service of this kind could be like, Audi is conducting tests in South America in cooperation with the Airbus subsidiary Voom. Customers will be able to book their helicopter flights in Mexico City or Sao Paulo, while an Audi awaits you to or from the landing site.

“Services like this help us to understand our customers’ needs better. Because in the future, flying taxis will appeal to a wide range of city dwellers. With Pop.Up Next we are simultaneously exploring the boundaries of what is technically possible. The next step is for a full-size prototype to fly and drive,” said Dr. Martens.

Audi is also supporting the Urban Air Mobility flying taxi project in Ingolstadt, and is also part of the joint project of the European Union in the framework of the marketplace for the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities.

This project allows public to gain a better understanding of benefits of new technologies and answer questions concerning battery technology, regulation, certification, and infrastructure.

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