Airbus shows new version of electric flying taxi CityAirbus

Airbus has shown the CityAirbus NextGen, a successor to the CityAirbus shown earlier. It is a flying air taxi that works with electric motors and batteries. The new model has a range of 80 kilometers and should fly for the first time in 2023.

The fixed-wing eVTOL CityAirbus NextGen has eight propellers and a v-shaped tail. Six of the propellers are attached to the two wings and allow the air taxi to take off. The two remaining propellers are on the tail and are oriented horizontally. The CityAirbus NextGen can transport a maximum of four people.

The NextGen focuses on urban transport. That is why the aircraft will have a range of eighty kilometers and a cruising speed of one hundred and twenty kilometers per hour. Because of this focus on urban areas, Airbus says it has paid attention to the noise production of the means of transport. During flying the CityAirbus NextGen produces 65dB(A), during landing this is 70dB(A).

Airbus expects to be able to fly a prototype of the CityAirbus NextGen for the first time in 2023. Two years later, the aircraft manufacturer expects to be able to get the CityAirbus certified. The manufacturer says that the NextGen is building on the success of previous prototypes such as the autonomous air taxi Vahana and the earlier CityAirbus model. With these two models, the manufacturer has flown about a thousand kilometers, spread over 242 flights.

Airbus does not seem to want to offer autonomous air taxi services itself, but says it is working with partner companies, cities and residents ‘to create the necessary ecosystem’. Prices have not been mentioned by Airbus.