An ambitious statement like this one would go unnoticed, causing some laughs along the way, if it wasn’t made by the second largest aeronautics company in the United States (behind Boeing). According to Airbus engineer, Robin Lyasoof, “many of the technologies needed, such as batteries, motors and avionics are most the way there”, that’s why this project seems to be feasible after all.

The ZEN SERVICE

Passengers looking to avoid traffic would book a seat on a zenHOP which would later arrive in the chosen zenHUB near the passenger’s destination. You would think that riding one of these taxis would be too expensive, but fear not, zenMOVE has got you covered, since it has found other passengers looking to go where you are going, dropping the cost of the ride as low as that of a normal taxi. On top of that, no need to worry about your luggage – zenLUGGAGE takes care of that – or your security, as — wait for it — zenCYBER protects your flight against hacker attacks.

The DESIGN

Airbus is keeping the electric aircraft design under wraps, but it did release an artist perspective of what the autonomous taxis could look like.

Airbus has been working on drone related projects for a couple of years. Let’s hope that we’ll see the results of their work sooner rather than later.

The post Airbus wants to make self-flying taxis by this time next year appeared first on BadFive.

Larry Page, Google’s co-founder, has been secretly funding 2 Silicon Valley startups that focus on creating flying cars. He has reportedly spent more than $100 million of his personal fortune on the flying car company called, Zee.Aero.

Zee.Aero

Zee.Aero, which is set up next to Google HQ in Mountain View, has been working on flying car prototypes since 2010.Although they have previously denied any affiliation with Google, it is now known that the company has been funded in secret by Larry Page since its creation.

The company is said to be building an electric plane that can take off and land vertically, with the help of aerospace designers and engineers hired from NASA, Boeing and Space X.

Kitty Hawk

The second startup, Kitty Hawk, is reported by Bloomberg to be building a vehicle “that resembles a giant version of a quadcopter drone” and it’s consisted of Zee.Aero’s veterans.

The post Google’s co-founder Larry Page is secretly building flying cars appeared first on BadFive.