Airbus and Italdesign have revealed their plans to help city dwellers beat traffic with a modular vehicle that is part car, part drone.
The concept vehicle, named Pop Up, was unveiled at this year's Geneva Motor Show. It features a "passenger capsule" that can detach from a wheeled base.
Should the passenger get stuck in traffic, the car would disconnect from its wheels before being picked up by a set of motors and taking to the skies.
Airbus, which has imagined the concept alongside Italdesign, believes the vehicle could be a viable solution for easing traffic in overpopulated and crowded cities.
"It combines ground with the air and allows passengers a seamless and faster way of getting from A-to-B using the city sky," said Mathias Thomsen, general manager at Airbus. "Right now, the urban sky is quite underutilised. The grid-like layout of road doesn't actually do it for us, and we think that by combining air and ground we will get a much better use of the space in our cities."
Both companies predict that the vehicle would be part of a ride-hailing system. Passengers would plan their journey and book their trip via an app, with the system automatically suggesting the best transport solution ? either air or ground.
If flight prevails as the favoured method of transport, the capsule would disconnect from the ground module and be carried by an air module propelled by eight counter-rotating rotors. When in the air, it is envisioned that the vehicl...