Uber Partner Reveals Design of Upcoming Air Taxi Vehicle at CES 2019

Last year, Uber revealed its plans to expand its ride-hailing business to the skies. Whereas the concept should still take some longer to take off, a Texas-based company Bell, one amongst Uber's flying taxi partners, revealed the planning of its vertical take-off and landing air taxi at CES, a five-person hybrid-electric powered vehicle with six tilting ducted fans. The company showed off the cabin of its air taxi at CES last year, and this year, it's debuting a scale model of the vehicle currently dubbed the Bell Nexus.

Uber intends to launch its Uber Air service in another four years. The service will expand to international markets, however, there is no clear timeline on when that may happen. Uber is functioning with a bunch of companies to make its futuristic air taxi service.

This is not the first time we have seen prototypes of Uber's air taxi vehicles. In May last year, Uber had revealed one of its air taxi prototypes while claiming to start commercial operations in 2023.

In an official statement, the president and CEO of Bell, Mitch Snyder said, "As space at the ground level becomes restricted, we should solve transportation challenges in the vertical dimension - and that is where Bell's on-demand mobility vision takes hold."

In August last year, Uber had revealed that India is one among the 5 shortlisted countries for its flying taxi business. Out of those 5 countries, one will host the first Uber Air city outside the US. Uber also claimed it will help cut travel time in Mumbai by around 90 % with its flying taxi.