Chinese drone maker EHang claims to be building the world’s first “Autonomous Aerial Vehicle” for transporting people.
Called the 184, it sort of looks like an overgrown quadcopter drone. The all-electric vehicle has four arms with a total of eight propellers at the end. The thing is almost five feet tall and weighs 440 pounds. It can hold only 220 pounds. The company claims the 184 is autonomous, so all the passenger has to do is enter in their destination in the smartphone app.
“Passengers don’t need to learn how to fly it, they don’t need get to a pilot’s license,” EHang cofounder Derrick Xiong said in an interview. ”They just need to press a button and then it vertically takes off, flies from point A to point B, and lands.”
EHang said the vehicle is primarily designed for traveling short-to-medium distances — around 10 miles — and will fly at around 60 miles per hour.
No official launch date has been set, but the company said commercialization will begin in a few months. EHang will first launch in the China and set up a command center there, where it will employ around 300 people, but the US isn’t far behind.
The vehicle won’t be cheap. Although the company is still working out the price, it could range anywhere between $200,000 and $300,000. There’s also the service fee to pay for the command center on top of that.
EHang sees the vehicle as being particularly attractive in big cities with lots of street traffic, like Beijing or Los Angeles. Xiong said the company is already in talks with city officials in LA about bringing in the vehicle.
source forbes.com
No comments:
Post a Comment