In China, a flying drone taxi was tested with a pilot inside
Ehang indicated that she spent “more than a thousand flights” in four years, but the video was the first visual demonstration of human transportation. Before that, drones-taxis were checked in Dubai, but they did not risk putting the pilot inside. Uber had a similar video, but it’s advertising and almost entirely made on the computer.
EHang 184 is equipped with eight beams for a pair of screws on each and can fly 15 kilometers on one charge, and also accelerate to 130 kilometers per hour. Presumably, the transport will be completely autonomous – the pilot will only need to specify the end point of the route. Manual mode will be left only in case of emergency.
Earlier, EHang published flight tests of a drone without a passenger: for example, single transport can lift up to 230 kilograms of cargo. It is assumed that the commercial version of the flying taxi will be available for a couple of years.