GENEVA MOTOR SHOW: Audi enters flying car race

If we can make autonomous vehicle technology foolproof enough for roads and cities, then why not skip self-driving cars and head straight for the sky, right?

After all, there’s a lot less stuff to bump into up there and Jetsons-style flying cars would get commuters where they need to go quicker and more efficiently, leaving the roads to those of us who actually enjoy driving and air traffic controllers to sort out the rest. Simple.

Recently car-makers including Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and Geely have hedged their bets by helping to develop a number of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) vehicles -- and now it seems Audi has joined the bandwagon.

Designed with Italdesign, the original Airbus Pop.Up was revealed a year ago and now it has been revamped with the help of Audi, which is supporting the project with know-how on battery technology and automation.

Revealed today at the Geneva motor show, the new-generation Pop.Up Next has a redesigned interior and is significantly lighter than its predecessor.

Key new features of this flying car ‘study’ is a dominant 49-inch screen, speech and facial recognition, eye-tracking technology and old-fashioned touch functionality, by which humans interact with it.

Like its predecessor, the futuristic Geneva motor show concept is based around an ultra-light, two-seat passenger cabin that can be attached either to a car module or to a flight module.

The modular concept is an all-electric, fully automatic pod that delivers both horizontal and vertical mobility, which “in the distant future this vehicle could transport people in cities quickly and conveniently on the road and in the air, at the same time solving traffic problems.

Audi’s board member for procurement and president of Italdesign, Dr Bernd Martens, says the Pop.Up Next is “an ambitious vision that could permanently change our urban life in the future”.

“Creativity is needed where new mobility concepts for cities and people’s diverse needs are concerned. Italdesign is an incubator for innovative technologies and radical prototyping,” he said.

Jörg Astalosch, CEO of Italdesign, which develops future-oriented vehicle concepts for Audi and other customers, sees the Pop.Up Next as a flexible on-demand robo-taxi concept that could “open up mobility in the third dimension to people in cities”.

He said Italdesign is making use of a network of cities, universities and various stakeholders to better anticipate the future of mobility in cities.

“Various players will define the rules of urban mobility in the future,” he said. “We are proud to collaborate with Airbus, the leading company in the aerospace industry, to investigate solutions for future mobility.”