Called the Alauda Mk3, it is an electric vertical takeoff multicopter that was remotely controlled and the test flights took place under the supervision of Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority
Australian aerospace and maritime engineering company Airspeed said that its flying electric car, the first of its kind in the world. has made its first unpiloted test flights in southern Australia.
Called the Alauda Mk3, it is an electric vertical takeoff multicopter (abbreviated eVTOL for electric vertical take off and landing) that was remotely controlled and the test flights took place under the supervision of Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority.
This was planned ahead of a race series which is planned for later in the year that would involve remotely piloted flying electric cars. The Alauda MK3 is a four metre-long multi-copter weighing 130 kilograms and has a thrust to weight ratio that exceeds that of a fighter aircraft.
Depending on the conditions, these vehicles will have the ability to fly between 150-250 kmph. The aircraft even has space for a cockpit that could host a human pilot but as of now it is robotically controlled by a “telerobotic avatar”.
“We’ve got a robot in the cockpit, linked up to a pilot on the ground. When the pilot turns their head, the robot turns their head,” Pearson told the Guardian.
These flying cars are also equipped with LiDAR and radar systems to help avoid mid-air collisions.
“Basically, the pilot has complete freedom … but we can create a virtual force-field between the aircraft in the air, even at really high speeds,” Pearson said.
These races will rapidly hasten the arrival of eVTOL advanced air mobility craft. This technology, predicted by Morgan Stanley to be worth $1.5 trillion by 2040 is already finding potent applications in air logistics and remote medical care and has the potential to liberate cities from congestion though clean-air passenger applications like air taxis, the company said in a release.
It also gets powered by a lithium-polymer battery with a battery life of about 15 minutes. Each race will last 45 minutes requiring a pitstop for battery swaps which is a 20-second process, something that’s not too dissimilar from what happens in F1, where tyres are changed.
Many companies are working on flying cars – including start-ups like Kitty Hawk which is backed by Alphabet/Google founder Larry Page and even ride-sharing companies like Uber.