Uber?has picked Melbourne as the first city outside the United States to?debut?its flying taxis.
Uber選擇了墨爾本作為美國之外的第一個(gè)推出飛行出租車的城市。
Test flights in the Australian city will begin by next year and the ride-hailing company is aiming to offer a commercial service from 2023, it announced Tuesday.
"We will see other Australian cities following soon after," Susan Anderson, Uber's regional manager for Australia, said at the company's annual flying car conference in Washington, D.C.
Melbourne will be the third city to host trials of Uber's flying taxis, after Dallas, Texas, and Los Angeles, California. The electric taxis will be flown by a pilot.
Uber has partnered with NASA on its flying taxi program, which it calls Elevate, and is one of several companies racing to make?aerial?vehicles a reality. Other big names in the business include Rolls Royce and Boeing.
Even as it works on developing autonomous, electric flying vehicles — which are still several years away — Uber is already taking its service to the skies in other ways.
The company will start a helicopter service on July 9 from Manhattan to JFK Airport. It says customers will save an hour of travel time during the afternoon rush hour by buying a roughly $200 ticket on the eight-minute flight.
But the rollout of that service is now?clouded?by safety concerns about increased air traffic in cities, following two accidents in New York City in recent weeks.