The Uncertain Future of Transport: Air Taxis and Self-Driving Cars Are Here

The way we travel is about to undergo a major transformation. Very few future visions, the air taxi, the self-driving car, have seen the light of day.

With rapid advancements in technology, we are seeing the emergence of new forms of transport that have the potential to transform urban mobility, alleviate congestion, and enhance our lives.

But as thrilling as such advances may be, they bring their own challenges. To mass adoption, the way is paved with pitfalls, from regulatory hurdles to safety concerns.

But these technologies are igniting conversations about how we’ll navigate the world in the decades ahead. In this article, we’ll dive into the air taxi boom, the state of autonomous vehicles, and where they might take cities and society.

Air Taxis: The New Way of Taking to the Skies

Picture yourself stepping into a smooth, electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, avoiding the traffic jams below, and cruising your way through the clouds to your destination. [See the most-read stories in Science, Technology, and Health.

For the time being, startups such as Joby Aviation, Lilium, and Vertical Aerospace lead the emerging market for air mobility, offering potential time savings never seen in urban settings.

Air taxis aren’t only convenient; they’re also poised to change the face of urban infrastructure. Air routes will be key to relieving congestion in densely populated urban areas where traditional transport modes do not have space for more capacity.

So far, Los Angeles, Dubai, and Singapore are already running air taxi pilot programs, and sooner or later this will become part of our everyday travel routine. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of air taxis is their ability to address traffic congestion, one of the biggest problems plaguing rapidly expanding urban centers.

If hop-on, hop-off urban air mobility becomes the future, it could mean cars becoming a less common sight on the road, not to mention cleaner air thanks to many of these proposed vehicles being electrically powered, slicing both carbon and noise pollution.

The promise is very big, but there are challenges to keep in mind. This means we need to establish safety regulations for flying cars operating in these dense urban environments, and we’ll need a complete revision of the airspace management for the vehicles that are going to be flying around.

And public perception is key—there are many who are skeptical of electric air taxis, particularly when it comes to safety and reliability.

Self-Driving Cars: The Future of Autonomous Vehicles

AVs—full AVs—automated lanes—false autonomy—societal disruption.

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) are the next big breakthrough in transport technology. Tesla, Waymo, Uber… all working hard to create a self-driving car that can drive itself.

Fully autonomous vehicles have still yet to be adopted in mass production, but plenty of work has been done towards driver-assist technologies, and a level 5 autonomy car (truly self-driving) is slowly becoming a reality.

The advantages of self-driving cars are numerous. For one, they could cut traffic accidents dramatically—human error is responsible for more than 90 percent of crashes.

Self-driving cars, which depend on advanced sensors, machine learning, and AI algorithms, have the potential to make driving safer by reacting faster and more precisely to potential hazards than any human driver could ever achieve.

Moreover, self-driving cars can help reduce traffic congestion by finding the most efficient routes, facilitating carpooling, and adjusting driving dynamics based on live traffic information.

This change might slow down the number of vehicles on the road, making commutes more efficient and the air cleaner.

But there will be bumps along the road before self-driving vehicles go mainstream. Regulatory frameworks for AVs are still in flux, and questions about liability in the event of accidents with autonomous cars or trucks also must be answered definitively.

And other ethical questions, like how self-driving cars should make life-and-death decisions in certain situations, need to be solved before the vehicles can be widely deployed.

According to CNBC, CEO Mary Barra expects the automaker to offer self-driving vehicles to consumers later this decade.

Then there is the question of public trust.

All as people are understandably wary of handing over control of their own vehicle, particularly when that control is as paramount as their safety.

Not only will there be a need for ensuring technological breakthroughs, but also for a cultural migration from being driver-dependent to autonomous operators given the long distance between tech and car drivers.

According to Oho, The flying taxi is just around the corner, waiting to carry its passengers gracefully above the gridlock. Joby, a California-based firm developing flying taxis, could see them launch in Dubai as soon as 2026 (or even late 2025). Europe could see flying taxis arrive even sooner. Volocopter, a German firm, hopes to have its Volocity flying taxi service operational in Paris in time for the Olympic games in the city later this year. 

The Future of Urban Mobility: Air Taxis, Autonomous Vehicles and Everything in Between

Imagine if we could harness the best of air taxis and driverless cars? The future of transport might not be just about replacing one form of getting around with another — it’s about building an integrated travel ecosystem of self-driving, electric vehicles, on land and in the air.

A city of integrated mobility options that would allow you to take an autonomous car for a short trip and an air taxi for greater distances, all while reducing traffic and pollution.

This future would likely see air taxis complemented by autonomous cars that can shuttle passengers from a nearby landing pad to their final destination.

That could bring down the price and make it less complicated to use air taxis and ease the shift into a multimodal transportation world even more.

It is not a utopian vision, but it will need a lot of investment in infrastructure and the coordination of different providers of transport. A unified urban mobility network challenge will require a holistic perspective that brings together air and ground transportation.

Reflection: What Does the Future Hold?

For me personally, plans for flying taxis and self-driving cars seem just a little bit too good to be true — yet the pace of innovation in the transportation sector suggests it’s not that far away.

Air taxis enable a radical change in cities, decreasing travel times dramatically and taking lots of burden off current infrastructure.

The thought of skipping an hour-long commute and getting there in minutes — that’s a world I would love to be part of.

That said, I like the promise of autonomous vehicles, although I think the challenges are much greater than people assume.

The demand for personal mobility, especially for those unable to drive and congested urban areas, will face significant roadblocks in safety concerns, regulatory challenges, and public skepticism of self-driving vehicles.

Also, we should be sensitive to the implications for loss of jobs resulting from the deployment of AVs (e.g., professional drivers, among others). Providing a retraining and reskilling program for driving sector workers would be key to this transition.

In the end, these designs could transform our cities, making them safer, greener, and more efficient. But such an ambitious vision will require careful planning, capital investment, and a willingness to change from all people — governments, businesses, and consumers — to succeed.