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Rolls-Royce unveils flying taxi prototype, to be ready 2020
News & Trends •
the hybrid vehicle which has so far cost single-digit millions of pounds to develop will use a traditional gas turbine engine with an electrical system wrapped around it1 british engine maker rolls-royce revealed plans this week to develop a hybrid electric vehicle dubbed the flying taxi which takes off and lands vertically and could be airborne within five years1 rolls said it hoped to manufacture a prototype version of its electric vertical take-off and landing evtol vehicle within the next 18 months and could potentially take to the skies in the early 2020s1 the rolls-royce evtol plane will seat four or five people with a flying range of 500 miles 805 kilometres and a top speed of 200 miles per hour1 in this market you will see something like this flying within three to five years and we will demonstrate the system in two years said rob watson head of rolls-royces electrical team1 at the end of next year we will be flight ready he told afp at the groups farnborough chalet1 the london-listed aerospace giant which is based in derby in central england showed off the plans at the farnborough airshow for the first time as other players also rush into the market segment1 rolls-royce is also researching an all-electric product but that is not as advanced as the evtol offering1 there is an emerging market for all-electric planes but we believe that you need a level of requirement that an all electric system cannot really provide today watson told afp1 so all-electric is the way to hop around within a city but if you want to travel 200 or 300 miles if you want to run london to paris then you are going to want to run something that will give you that range1 so we think you will see hybrid propulsion systems starting to make this market1 rolls-royce is not alone in the hybrid flying taxi marketplace1 other companies researching the sector include us taxi-hailing company uber the google-backed kitty hawk project lilium aviation in germany safran in france and honeywell in the united states1