Uber, Dubai plan to test flying cars at Expo 2020 – Technology

Uber Technologies Inc has reportedly teamed up with officials from Dubai and Dallas to test flying cars within three years.

The company aims to hold test flights in Dubai during the city’s Expo 2020 event, its chief product officer Jeff Holden said at a conference in Dallas on Tuesday.

Holden was quoted as saying in media reports that the company’s models suggest flying cars could cost $1.32 per passenger mile, about the same rate as UberX, and later fall below the cost per mile of an owned vehicle.

Uber added that it was also working with real estate companies in Dubai and Dallas to build landing pads for the flying cars.

The San Francisco company said first revealed its intentions to build a system of flying cars in a white paper last autumn.

In February, the company said it hired NASA aircraft engineer Mark Moore to work on Uber Elevate, its flying car initiative.

Also in February, Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), in collaboration with the Chinese EHANG Company, announced that it had carried out the first test run of an autonomous aerial vehicle (AAV) capable of carrying a human, a world first.

The RTA said in a statement that it is set to start the operation of the AAV, named EHANG184 – effectively a driverless flying car – as early as July.