Uber to open a flying taxi research centre in France

Uber plans to publicly demonstrate its flying taxi service in 2020.

Hot on the feels of its Uber Elevate conference where a raft of vehicle and Skyport concepts came to light, the company has now announced it will build a new research centre in France that, at least initially, will be devoted to the cause.

Uber's flying taxi research program is called Elevate, with the non-existent flying taxi service referred to as UberAir for now. With this venture, Uber aims to establish transport networks around cities where vertical take-off and landing aircraft travel between Skyports, which are terminals for the electric aircraft to recharge and passengers to hop on and off.

At its new Advanced Technologies Center Paris (ATCP), its first research centre outside North America, Uber says its first focus will be on building artificial intelligence and air traffic management systems. These will be key, it says, to its first demonstration flights planned for 2020.

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