Uber To Bring Flying Taxis To Dallas By 2020

Dallas, CA — Uber is betting it can solve Dallas gridlock with flying cars by 2020. The company announced its ambitions plans for an airborne taxi service in Dallas and los Angeles Tuesday.

Jeff Holden, Uber's chief product officer, said testing will begin in Dallas-Fort Worth by 2020.

Los Angeles and Dallas are the only two cities so far where Uber plans to launch its ride-hailing taxi project, Uber Elevat. Uber also inked a deal announced Wednesday between Uber and NASA, formalizing the project,

The agreement is the latest development in Uber's "on demand aviation" plans for fleets of flying taxis, which the company expects to become a part of daily life for people who want to get from here to there in a jiffy. The four-passenger flying taxis will take off and land vertically, and will travel at a speed of about 200 miles per hour, Uber officials have said.

Uber contends its analysis estimates that an all-electric, 200 mph ride across the skies of Dallas will be price-competitive with an uberX trip of the same distance.

"In this case, technology will allow L.A. residents to literally fly over the city's historically bad traffic, giving them time back to use in far more productive ways, whether more leisure time with friends and family or more time to work," he said. "At scale, we expect uberAIR will perform tens of thousands of flights each day across the city -- at those levels, all the time savings will have a noticeable positive impact on the region's economy."

The company envisions a network of small, electric aircraft in numerous cities worldwide to enable four-person flights. The aircraft would differ from helicopters in that they would be quieter, safer, more affordable and more environmentally friendly, according to the company.

Critics, however, are skeptical.

“Why would you ever want to be up in an aerial vehicle with the same people you roll your eyes at when they drive by on the street?” aviation consultant Robert Mann told Dallas News earlier this year. “It’s bad enough when they drive, could you imagine having that much potential energy at your command over an urban area?”

A special effects video the company released on Twitter showed how the technology would work, portraying a woman hailing an uberAIR and then riding an elevator to the roof of a tall building to catch her flying ride.

Uber also announced it has signed an agreement with Sandstone Properties to develop skyport infrastructure to serve as takeoff and landing hubs for uberAIR flights at Sandstone's 20 locations in the greater L.A. area.

A ride on uberAIR from would cut an 80-minute drive down to 27 minutes, according to Uber. https://patch.com/california/studiocity/uber-bring-flying-taxis-los-angeles-2010

City News Service and Patch staffers Beth Dalbey and Paige Austin contributed to this report. Photo: (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)