Airbus plans on making a flying, self-driving car by 2018

We’ll be seeing more and more driverless cars on the road in the coming years, if automakers get their way. But if Airbus has its way, self-driving cars will be old news sooner rather than later.

The company hopes to have a working prototype of a self-driving, flying car by the year’s end, CEO Tom Enders said at the DLD conference in Munich on Monday, reports Reuters.

“One hundred years ago, urban transport went underground, now we have the technological wherewithal to go above ground,” he said.

The aerospace giant first made a commitment to the tech last August, when it announced it hoped to make flying, autonomous taxis a thing. “Many of the technologies needed, such as batteries, motors and avionics are most of the way there,” Rodin Lyasoff said, the Airbus executive in charge of the burgeoning project.

Enders on Monday added that the company hoped the flying vehicles would reduce infrastructure costs for cities, and said Airbus is making them as environmentally friendly as possible.

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