{"id":212727,"date":"2017-11-24T08:36:19","date_gmt":"2017-11-24T06:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=212727"},"modified":"2017-11-24T08:36:19","modified_gmt":"2017-11-24T06:36:19","slug":"this-startup-has-developed-a-flying-car-that-it-plans-to-roll-out-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/technology\/212727\/this-startup-has-developed-a-flying-car-that-it-plans-to-roll-out-next-year\/","title":{"rendered":"This startup has developed a flying car that it plans to roll out next year"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A Chinese startup has developed a flying car that it plans to roll out as soon as next year.<\/p>\n

EHang Inc\u2019s\u00a0E-184 drone can carry one passenger in its small cockpit, but the firm says it\u2019s working on a model that can carry two. EHang\u2019s chief executive officer\u00a0Hu Huazhi\u00a0says they\u2019ll be in operation as \u201ctaxi drones\u201d in Dubai in 2018 \u2014 as long as they get approval from regulators there.<\/p>\n

Four battery-powered propellers lift the drone off the ground, and it\u2019s equipped with fully-automated navigation, according to CEO Hu. Passengers select a pre-programmed flight path and then strap in for the ride. The E-184 has a cruising speed of up to 100 kilometers\u00a0(62 miles) an hour and can stay in the air for 25 minutes, the company says.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s currently being tested at EHang\u2019s headquarters: a disused theme-park on the outskirts of Guangzhou, southern China, a city that\u2019s at the vanguard of the country\u2019s push\u00a0to move away from cheap, low-end manufacturing and toward cutting-edge technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will start mass production of our passenger drones at the beginning of next year,\u201d Hu told Bloomberg TV. \u201cWe also plan to install fully automated production lines to enlarge manufacturing capacity in 2018.\u201d<\/p>\n

EHang has big ambitions \u2014 it wants to develop a network of taxi drones around the world. The company plans to sign deals in Saudi Arabia, Singapore and \u201cseveral European cites\u201d next year, the CEO said.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Alphabet test drones to deliver burritos in Australia<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Chinese startup has developed a flying car that it plans to roll out as soon as next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":212753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9878],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212765,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212727\/revisions\/212765"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}