Uber teases on-demand flying cars within 10 years

Uber is working on something that could be the next big thing, a service called Uber Elevate, which is teased as an "on demand aviation" service.

The company teased that it has a future vision of flying vehicles that would take passengers to the skies, freeing up the roads, with the Uber app being used to secure a flying car to take you to that business meeting, dinner, or the airport.

Uber expects the first of its flying cars to arrive in 2026, with the flying vehicles capable of hitting around 150 miles an hour and taking multiple passengers. The proposed flying vehicles would take off and land on repurposed parking garages and existing helipads, and as The Wall Street Journal points out, it will "enable carbon-spewing autos to be taken off the roads, reducing traffic for earthbound commuters and making Uber's core service more efficient. In some design renderings by Uber and others, the vehicles look like small airplanes with a set of pivoting propellers for flying horizontally or vertically".

It's hard to envision right now, because we don't have carmakers pumping out flying cars... but Uber said it won't be building the flying vehicles itself. The ridesharing giant will have its biggest hurdle being the government and various regulators, who are already shaking in their boots over package delivery drones - where they're forming framework that would allow companies like Amazon to fly packages to their consumers.

Uber's Chief Product Officer Jeff Holden explained that the company hopes "to collaborate with vehicle developers, regulators, city and national governments, and other community stakeholders, while bringing to the table a very fertile market of excited consumers and a clear vehicle and operations use case".