Flying cars might not yet be within our reach, but there are companies out there working on technology that would let drones ferry around human passengers like flying taxis, so at least that’s something.
A Chinese company called EHang has made a deal with the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) that will allow it to develop a testing program for its autonomous taxi drone (h/t The Verge).
The company wants to test its EHang184, which can carry one person at at ime, at the state’s Federal Aviation Administration-approved UAV test site. It still has to receive actual FAA approval to do so, and Nevada officials have offered to help EHang submit the results to the FAA for that further permission.
The prototype is over four feet tall and has eight propellers, and can carry a single passenger for 23 minutes at 60 mph. It’s still unclear whether the drone will carry a passenger during tests, however.
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This is just great , now we will have illegals coming in every minute of the day.
ReplyDelete"...It still has to receive actual FAA approval to do so..."
ReplyDeleteLike that's going to happen any time soon. It took over a decade just to get the basic civilian drone regulations in place.