Uber is working with NASA on a flying taxi project and they could be hovering around Los Angeles by 2020, Fox News reported. So far, though, everything still seems to be on the drawing board.
The project was revealed at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, on Wednesday, where Jeff Holden, Uber's head of product, said the partnership with NASA would propel the Uber Elevate initiative forward.
Holden also announced that Los Angeles had been added to the list of test cities with Dallas-Fort Worth and along with Dubai.
Part of the deal with NASA sees Uber signing a Space Act Agreement to manage the airborne vehicles via an air traffic control system.
CNBC reported Holden as saying UberAir would be steering flights on a daily basis.
“Doing this safely and efficiently is going to require a foundational change in airspace management technologies," he said. "Combining Uber's software engineering expertise with NASA's decades of airspace experience to tackle this is a crucial step forward for Uber Elevate."
Uber first revealed its plan to introduce its ride-sharing to the skies last year but, The Verge noted, still faces major obstacles.
Most notably, the aircraft and the supporting infrastructure envisioned by the company does not exist yet.
Despite this, Holden has insisted that there has been growth in the project.
“There’s been a great deal of progress that’s been hard to see from the outside, because a lot of this is just hard work at the drafting table,” he said, per The Verge.
“We feel really good. It’s been a really interesting process getting our vehicle manufacturing partners aligned on performance specifications, so that they’re building vehicles that align with what we need to make Elevate successful.”
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