China Licenses Flying Taxis for Mass Production

This is nothing to do with politics, but is an example of the way technology that for decades was confined to Science Fiction is becoming reality. It’s a short video from the South China Morning Post reporting that the Chinese government has licensed a flying taxi, produced by Ehang Holding’s Limited, for mass production. The taxi can fly forty miles on a single charge, but at a prices of the equivalent of $332,000 I doubt your average cabbie will be able to afford it.

The video below comes from the @XPENG_AEROHT channel on YouTube, and reports that Guangzhou will set up four low altitude traffic networks on Panyu island. This extremely brief video calls it an economic demo, and also refers to Panyu as university island, which suggests that it’s a demonstration of the taxis’ practical abilities in somewhere which, at the very least, has a very strong university presence.

Flying cars fascinated me, but I have reservations about them. The awesome SF artist Jim Burns, commenting on a painting of two flying cars chasing each other he did for a book, said that they’d become a serious problem once they started having accidents and it started raining bit of metal and body parts.

Tags: @XPENG_AEROHT, Fly8ing Cars, Guzngzhou, Jim Burns, Science Fiction, South China Morning Post, Universi8ties, Youtube