Italdesign, an Italian based car design and engineering company and Airbus, famous for its air transportation technology have joined up to create a concept flying vehicle. Not only is this space aged car designed to fly, possibly over traffic, but the flying mechanism itself is designed to detach from the vehicle.
Italdesign and Airbus, both known for their futuristic thinking and fantastic engineering, have each worked separately on ideas for a flying vehicle but have not collaborated until now. A concept model for the futuristic flying vehicle is set to debut at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show.
No more sitting in traffic
The two stage car concept, according to Italdesign and Airbus, is to have a self-driving flying vehicle that could navigate streets and roads but also has the ability to hover above stand still traffic. The self-driving chassis would have a passenger capsule mounted on it. If the vehicle were to sense street congestion, a large detachable Drone, potentially 5 meters by 5 meters, would navigate the car to any given destination, all while the passenger relaxes in the capsule. Italdesign and Airbus’s flying vehicle concept would be designed for use in super densely crowded metropolitan areas.
The idea of a car design that would change as the passenger required is not new to Italdesign.
In 1982, the company developed a car with a detachable cabin enabling it to be converted to a passenger car, commercial van or passenger bus. Italdesign called this concept the Capsula. Audi, Italdesign’s parent company, is hoping that investigating the future of vehicular mobility solutions, especially as a solution for densely populated areas, pays off by increasing their engineering and prototype business and an expanded customer base.
Concept vehicle
The France-based Airbus group has also developed specialty vehicles, albeit theirs a flying vehicle. The Vahana, designed to resemble more of a helicopter in its style and design, is set to be tested for ridesharing at the end of 2017. The target market for Airbus’s self flying vehicle are commuters. Even Uber is set to get in on the autonomous vertical lift off and land vehicle action by issuing a report announcing their interest in a fleet of self flying vehicles. With flight testing coming in 2017. The beta project for the Vahana is set hopefully for 2020
