The chief executive of the European operations for the Hyundai carmaker, Michael Cole, offered a bold prediction for the near future, speaking at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders conference about how flying cars could become a reality around the world by the end of the decade.
According to The Guardian, Cole said that Hyundai has made “very significant investments” in urban air mobility since the firm believes it "really is part of the future".
“We think that by the latter part of this decade certainly, urban air mobility will offer great opportunity to free up congestion in cities, to help with emissions, whether that’s intra-city mobility in the air or whether it’s even between cities", Cole asserted.
He also said that the ambitions are part of the company's "future solution of offering innovative, smart mobility solutions."
Apparently, such plans fall in line with Hyundai's joint endeavour with Uber, first announced last year when the firms showcased the concept of flying taxis at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Such taxis would be electric planes that would fly above traffic, rather than joining the lines. At the time, Uber voiced its intention to launch such services by 2023.
Hyundai is also involved in a project of the world's smallest airport with no runways, expected to be implemented in the UK by the end of 2021, dubbed a "pop-up airport".
"The Urban-Air Port would be able to support a variety of use-cases, including air taxis and autonomous delivery drones", said a spokesperson for Coventry University, which is behind the project, in a press release in February 2021.