Boeing and Porsche Partner to Develop Premium Flying Car for Urban Travel

Porsche and Boeing have announced that they've officially teamed up to explore the development of premium flying cars designed for urban environments. Putting together their individual strengths in their individual markets, Porsche and Boeing signed a Memorandum of Understanding to "study the future of premium urban air mobility vehicles", aka, premium flying cars for inner-city transportation. This partnership will join various international teams from each brand to research air mobility, study what a premium segment of these vehicles could look like, and contemplate possible use cases. The two companies along with Aurora Flight Sciences (a subsidiary of Boeing) will be developing a concept for an electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle (VTOL) which is expected to lead to a prototype.

A study conducted by Porsche in 2018 suggests that the flying vehicle market will "pick up speed after 2025" when the technology is more efficient, and the costs are more accessible. Currently, though no flying cars or taxis are commercially operating in the skies, several prototypes are being tested; Kitty Hawk has a few urban air mobility models in the works, and Uber has been very public about its project to make the Uber Air flying taxi service a reality.