Airbus and Audi Working on Car Helicopter Hybrid

Modern day vehicles have seen quite an evolution especially during the ongoing century. We see all kinds of technologies being brought to life and just to see it in action is mind blowing. Self-driving and electric cars are the latest trends. However, the new Car Helicopter concept has been revealed and it is proof that we aren’t too far away from the flying vehicles.

Although they are on the expensive side, they are still reliable and are very much in demand. However, people have started to tire of the cars and that’s largely due to the traffic. Everywhere you go, there are traffic blocks. This has affected people’s attitude towards traveling.

Everyone now wants to go out as less as possible because they simply don’t want to deal with excessive traffic every single time. That’s an understandable feeling. You and I have also been on the road and we know annoying it can be to be stuck in a traffic jam. We want an innovation that could rid of this traffic blocks, and Airbus along with Audi decided to collaborate with ItalDesign to make that happen.

Car Helicopter Hybrid

Both of these industry giants have decided to partner up for the world’s first car helicopter hybrid and they are naming it Pop.Up Next. However, as you’d expect, things will not be easy. Firstly, it requires a humongous amount of budget.

Secondly, it requires a ton of testing to see if a car can be driven and flown at the same time. This is the innovation we want to see being brought to life, but Audi and Airbus want us to be patient.

They don’t want to rush it as they believe that this technology will shape up the future of vehicles. Both companies are willing to take as much time as their engineers require. A prototype of what’s being worked on has been presented and you can check it out in the above image.

We have seen Tesla do something similar to it where they created a prototype vehicle that could take a shape of an airplane. That experiment was somewhat a success but the taking off part was too difficult to handle. However, with Helicopter, taking off is easy. The vehicle doesn’t need to be at a certain speed and most importantly, it can be done from any location. Helicopters can take off from any location at any time and that’s what the industry giants are trying to incorporate in Pop.Up Next.

Features

Pop.Up Next is being developed for the future, so it’s only natural that it’s doing away with the human factor. The hybrid vehicle is completely autonomous and works with the help of a supercomputer. It is equipped with a small cabin that contains a 49-inch widescreen. That screen is in charge of the vehicle. It will recognize the registered face and fingerprints and will start. This means no more keys or button pressing. It will also help reduce the number of car thefts, which have seen a significant rise during the past couple of years. One of the designers further explained that the interaction between the vehicle and the user will happen through “speech and face recognition, eye-tracking and a touch function.”

No Steering Wheel

There are no steering wheels, pedals, or any other instrument to let you go where you want. You have to provide all the information through the aforementioned ways. The internal space is quite large and that’s also something that team has worked very hard to achieve.

Most of the modern-day vehicles feel somewhat congested. You have a hard time moving around in them and people suffering from claustrophobia especially consider the modern day cars their hell. The spacious interior allows free movement and provides the comfort the people need.

Future

At the moment, Pop.Up Next is just a concept and it won’t go into production anytime soon. The technology required to make it work just doesn’t exist right now. However, with the help of these concepts, engineers get ideas and make plans on what to work on next.

HyperLoop trains were also originated as an idea and everyone considered them to be vaporware. However, UCLA engineers stepped in and started working on designs for the trains. Now, they are in testing phase and are expected to run through Los Angeles to San Francisco by 2021.

Pop.Up Next is in the same league. It may seem like a non-viable product at this point, but that may change, come next year. Technology is getting evolved with each passing day and we may see a working prototype of the Pop.Up Next real soon.

People are getting tired of the regular vehicles for the reasons we discussed earlier in the article. It has become tiring to go to places because of the excessive traffic and a car helicopter hybrid would be awesome. This is a step in the right direction and I am sure that we will soon see this or something like this vehicle in action in the near future.