Audi appears to be in doubt of taking the skies. The German automaker has previously revealed its plans of designing a flying taxi with the help of Airbus, but those plans have now been scrapped.
In recent talk with Roadshow, Audi said it is "currently working on a realignment of our urban air mobility activities and [has] not yet made a decision on possible future products."
The company has decided to reconsider its plans of partnering with other companies, implying it would rather work with organizations that are part of the Volkswagen Group. The luxury vehicle maker again pointed out that the PopUp Next concept was never really intended for production, which is to say that it was merely a concept to help visualize a word where self-driving air taxis exist.
However, Audi said that the machine's complexities serve as an integral aspect of its research for the future of autonomous driving. Audi did admit that flying taxis will take "a very long time" to be mass-produced, given the sophistication of the tech involved in making such a form of transportation.
This has led them to decide to let the project hang for a while. Despite the newness of the technology, and safety concerns surrounding current urban helicopter services, several automakers, aviation firms, and tech companies are still trying to launch flying taxis.
Daimler, for one, owns a stake in Volocopter, a German flying taxi startup. Porsche, also part of the Volkswagen Group banner, announced it has partnered with Boeing to design premium-class flying taxis. As for Audi, the company believes that the Porsche-Boeing partnership will only result in benefits for each company and that air taxis are an inevitable part of the future of transportation.
Audi may not roam the skies as quickly as they thought https://t.co/SuTXvNoLIQ — CNET (@CNET) October 14, 2019
Last year's Geneva Motor Show saw the debut of the PopUp Next air taxi, which is basically a drone and city car in one. The vehicle was developed with Airbus and was expected as the best option to take when you have to travel by air but have to transition to last-mile movement ground travel.
Audi conducted a test flight for the PopUp, which was considered successful, having signed a letter of intent with city of Ingolstadt prior to testing the flying car.
Porsche believes that this form of transportation will become a norm less than a decade from now, based on an internal study. As for Audi, the company said it would continue to provide updates.
