The new Airbus and Italdesign vision for urban transit separates the passenger cabin from the mode of transportation. “Pop.Up is a new mobility concept. It’s multi-modal and allows passengers a seamless and faster way of getting from A to B using the city sky,” says Mathias Thomsen, General Manager, Airbus Urban Air Mobility. In press materials, the Pop.Up concept cabin is shown being delivered to the user’s house as an autonomous road vehicle. As it approaches the city, the cabin is lifted off the road-going platform by an autonomous quad-rotor, which carries the user to her destination at the heart of the city. Thomsen proposes the cabin could also be loaded onto a hyperloop for high-speed, long-distance travel.
Airbus is naturally focused on the airborne portion of the concept. The two-person capsule plus its electric, ducted quadrotor platform is designed with a top speed of 54 knots and a range of 60 miles. Airbus says the entire vehicle will have a gross weight of 1320 pounds, which may prove to be ambitious given the industry’s experience with light sport aircraft coming in at the same weight. The concept calls for a 70 kWh battery pack. A comparably sized Tesla Motors battery pack reportedly weighs 1200 pounds alone.Airbus says, perhaps optimistically, that these vehicles could be on the road, and in the air, in the next 7-10 years.
Photo and video credit: Airbus and Italdesign
