In the future, car traffic will have no effect on your taxi ride — at least, that is what Uber and NASA are counting on. On Wednesday, November 8, at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, Uber’s head of product Jeff Holden announced more details about Uber’s flying taxis program.
Holden said Los Angeles will be the third city Uber plans to use as a test site for its flying taxi project “Elevate” by 2020. Dallas and Dubai were the first two cities added as initial test sites for Uber’s flying taxi initiative in April. Holden also revealed Uber signed a Space Act Agreement with NASA in an effort to create a custom air traffic control system that would manage Uber’s fleet of low-flying aircrafts.
“[Los Angeles is] one of the most congested cities in the world today,” Holden said. “They essentially have no mass transit infrastructure. This type of approach allows us to very inexpensively deploy a mass transit method that actually doesn’t make traffic worse.”
Uber also unveiled a concept video of how hailing a flying taxi would work. In a promotional video, a woman uses the Uber app to hail a flight on UberAir. Afterward, she enters a building and takes an elevator to the top floor labeled “Uber Skyport.” Once she’s reached the Skyport floor, she scans a QR code from her digital boarding pass on her phone to gain entry. She is accompanied by three other people in the aircraft with and there is an overhead display showing the flight path, elevation, speed, and arrival time.
Even if catching a flight becomes as easy as hailing a taxi, the UberAir fleet won’t be considered flying cars. Uber says the aircraft will be electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles (EVTOL). The EVTOL aircraft will possibly be autonomous and use distributed electric propulsion which will allow the vehicles to fly you around while making very little noise. But, these EVTOLs never hit the road, nor do they have an essential component of anything related to a car.
The tagline at the end of the promotion video reads “closer than you think.” With companies such as Air Bus and Boeing working on their own flying car fleet, Uber’s promise may be truer than you may believe.
BYD has launched the third-generation Qin Plus DM-i in China, and the first thing that caught my eye is its price. According to CarNewsChina, the plug-in hybrid sedan starts at 79,900 yuan, which is about $11,980. That’s an incredibly low price for a brand-new car, especially by US standards.
What’s even more impressive is the range. The Qin Plus DM-i can drive up to 137 miles on electricity alone, which should cover most people’s daily commutes without using a drop of gas. Once the battery runs out, the 1.5-liter engine takes over. Thanks to its 17-gallon tank and roughly 91 mpg with a drained battery, the combined range reaches up to 1,423 miles.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.