Although the Geneva Motor show has plenty of awe-inspiring concepts cars but one is top of the list which is definitely fruit of collaboration between aerospace manufacturer Airbus and design house Italdesign, I mean new Pop.Up concepts. It blurs the line between self-driving cars and VTOL flying car. Its removable passenger cell rides on ground atop electric vehicle chassis and decouples it from the chassis to fly it in the air through self-piloted multicopter using its whirring rotors. In this way the commuters will travel from one place to another place.
Both the companies have done their roles as Italdesign has done work on autonomous car design and Airbus has developed personal commuters drones and the Pop-up concepts is not entirely a surprise.
You may ignore other massive commuter drones presented in Geneva’s Palexpo but not the Pop.Up as its typical tiny, autonomous urban commuter concept. Having zero emission powertrain and glass heavy styling feel, its quite at home amongst other compact commuter show cars like Honda NeuV and Toyota I-Tril.
This multicopter can’t be ignore especially at an show full of grounded vehicles as it signifies the Pop.up concepts unique blend of air-ground capabilities. It starts with an accompanying vehicle-sharing app. As traveler books the ride the app shows the informations like timing, cost and ride-sharing demand and more, working to decide the ideal route over the ground and in the air between beginning and end points of the journey.
It relies on three pieces of hardware, two-seat 8.5 x 4.6 x 4.9-ft passenger that can ride on electric motor-driven carbon fiber ground chassis or vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) air module however it depends on the route preferred by the passenger. After the end of the journey, the Pop-Up air/ground module returns back to the charging station to wait for next app-ordered ride.
Airbus and Italdesing presents Pop.up concepts as solution to traffic problems of future megacities.
“Adding the third dimension to seamless multi-modal transportation networks will without a doubt improve the way we live and how we get from A to B,” said Mathias Thomsen, Airbus general manager for urban air mobility.
