Accordingly south Korean car manufacturer hyundai and US ride-hailing firm uber announced on monday an agreement to collaborate on the development of air taxis at CES 2020. Eric Allison, head of uber Elevate, reported "Hyundai is our first vehicle partner with experience of manufacturing passenger cars on a global scale. We believe hyundai has the potential to build uber air vehicles at rates unseen in the current aerospace industry".
Furthermore under the agreement, hyundai will be responsible for the manufacture and deployment of the air vehicles, while uber will provide logistics so that the service can operate, connect drivers or, in this case, pilots with passengers and manage the transfer of clients to and from helipads. Meanwhile the companies revealed the collaboration at the CES consumer electronics fair being held in Las Vegas, Nevada, and said they hoped to perform the first tests this year and launch the full service in 2023.
Apparently the air vehicle designed by hyundai was unveiled as model S-A1, which will be 100 per cent electric, reach speeds of 290 kilometers per hour(180 miles per hour) and travel distances of up to 100 km that is, it will specialize in short journeys of less than 30 minutes. Moreover the statement said the air vehicle concept "was created in part through Uber's open design process, a NASA-inspired approach that jump-starts innovation by publicly releasing vehicle design concepts so any company can use them to innovate their air taxi models and engineering technologies."
