Uber plans for fleet of flying cars within a decade
Uber will have a fleet of flying cars within a decade, according to a 98-page white paper the company released on Thursday. The on-demand service provided by small electric aircraft that take off and land vertically (VTOL), called Uber Elevate, could become "an affordable form of daily transportation for the masses." Whilst starting out "optionally piloted", the aircraft will eventually be automated. However, challenges to overcome include improving battery tech, infrastructure networks and, likely the most contentious, regulatory approval from aviation agencies like the FAA. The company says it will hold a global summit early in 2017 to explore and accelerate on-demand urban aviation.
In less than a decade, Uber has redefined the idea of flexible labor and gutted the American taxi industry. The company launched a fleet of self-driving cars in Pittsburgh. It's on its way to becoming the most valuable startup ever.

Whatever. Today, Uber is promising flying cars.

Flying. Cars.

Within a decade, according to a 99-page white paper released today, Uber will have a network---to be called "Elevate"---of on-demand, fully electric aircraft that take off and land vertically. Instead of slogging down the 101, you and a few other flyers will get from San Francisco to Silicon Valley in about 15 minutes---for the price of private ride on the ground with UberX. Theoretically.

These aren't flying cars in the sense that they both drive on the ground and soar through the air. Uber is using the much more exciting, Jetsons sense of the term: a future that lifts you over the brutality of traffic jams and congested roads.

That dream has been around as long as planes and automobiles. The idea landed the first of many Popular Science covers in 1926. Henry Ford promised the tech was nigh in 1940. And it's exactly the sort of thing Silicon Valley's proponents say modern technology companies can and should produce---instead of useless apps and infantilizing on-demand services.

Now, Uber plans to be the one to make the dream happen, with a chunk of help. The San Francisco-based transportation goliath has no intention of designing or building these things, instead hoping to catalyze the market, bringing together private and government parties to solve a pile of technical, regulatory, and infrastructural problems, from battery density to aircraft certification to air traffic control.

"If you can do all those things," says Jeff Holden, Uber's product chief, "you've got the potential for a new transportation method."

Once the pieces are in place, Uber can do what it's already done with cars: enrolling pilots, connecting them with its massive customer base, advising on routes, and collecting its share of the fare.

"We're just turning the corner now to make that possible," Holden says. "Our intent is to help the industry get there faster."

Takeoff

Believe it or not, building a flying car isn't the hardest part of this scheme. Within five years, according to the white paper, Uber expects the market to produce a fully electric, vertical-takeoff-and-landing plane that can fly 100 miles at about 150 mph, carrying multiple passengers and a pilot.

Aviation experts say that timeline makes sense. Boeing and Airbus have already introduced lightweight, composite materials and fly-by-wire systems to commercial aviation. Consumer drones have proven sophisticated software can make flying a multi-propeller aircraft as easy as thumbing an iPhone. Computers and electric cars have pushed battery technology forward, and the US Department of Energy is spending tens of millions of dollars to accelerate research.

Holden predicts Uber Elevate will operate fixed wing, tilt-rotor aircraft, which take off from helipads instead of space-hungry runways, then swing their propellers forward for efficient level flight a few thousand feet up.