Will Flying Taxis Take Off?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 17 October 2018
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Could drone technology solve our urban transport needs? Ed Butler explores the new generation of flying cars developers hope will be ferrying commuters around major cities in the next few years. Steven Tibbitts, chief executive of Zeva Aero, and Eric Bartsch of start-up VerdeGo Aero, give the sales pitch. Steve Wright, associate professor in aerospace engineering at the University of the West of England in the UK, gives the reality check.
(Photo: Prototype drone taxi on display in Dubai in 2017, Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:06.8 | Coming up, is it true, will we really be boarding flying taxis in the next few years? |
| 0:12.9 | We're seeing a lot of interest in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangkok. |
| 0:18.7 | We all find ourselves in these cities where it's really valuable to you to get up and over the traffic. |
| 0:25.1 | Yes, flying cars are our theme today, drones carrying the wealthy and the fearless among us, up and away. |
| 0:32.3 | But are we ready for this flying revolution? |
| 0:34.6 | We are a fearful lot and we need to get used to ideas. |
| 0:39.7 | And so once it's seen to be part of our everyday lives, people will accept it. |
| 0:47.0 | That's all to come and Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:52.3 | Are we really on the brink of a new transport revolution? |
| 0:59.6 | Those magnificent men in a flying machine, they go up to the up up, they go down to the |
| 1:06.9 | up-up-the-up-the-up. |
| 1:07.6 | Could we be about to take off in flying cars? |
| 1:11.5 | Cars to ferry us around, big cities of the world, |
| 1:14.3 | above and away from all the nightmarish traffic below? |
| 1:17.8 | The reason is we now have drone technology, |
| 1:20.0 | the kind our own Zoe Kleinman, managed to play with |
| 1:23.5 | on a recent trip to the Nevada desert for business days. |
| 1:31.3 | Music on a recent trip to the Nevada desert for Business Day. Here we are in the middle of a slightly windy, quite cold desert, |
| 1:35.9 | and there's all sorts of little drone copters buzzing around us here. |
| 1:39.6 | What's the appeal? |
| 1:41.0 | I think they're an amazing tool. |
... |
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