Play

Uber is taking the idea of flying high seriously. It has teamed up with NASA to launch autonomously flying electric taxis, and says that these new rides may arrive as early as 2020.

The company made the announcement during the annual Elevate summit in Los Angeles, revealing that the service will be titled UberAIR. NASA stated that this is its first agreement specifically focussed on urban air mobility operations.

Jaiwon Shin, associate administrator for NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, said, “Urban air mobility could revolutionise the way people and cargo move in our cities and fundamentally change our lifestyle much like smart phones have.” Uber demonstrated its flying taxi prototype to CBS This Morning (video above), and CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said, “We think cities are going to go vertical in terms of transportation. We want to make that a reality.”

On its Twitter page Uber posted the video below, as an advertisement for the futuristic service. The taxis will be electrically powered. The prototype is still in the design phase, however, and the final product may look different.

Oh and