Science fiction fans might recall Bruce Willis in the hit 1997 movie The Fifth Element, where, among other things, he played a futuristic cab driver. While the electrically-powered taxis won’t do the same acrobatics in the air as he did, the day of the flying taxi is almost here. Just imagine almost silently buzzing over Paris and the Eiffel Tower, before gently hovering down at your destination.

Electric flying taxis at the 2024 Paris Olympics

Paris is certainly going overboard with the 2024 Paris Olympics. It was recently reported that the River Seine is being cleaned to allow locals and visitors to swim around in 2024. Now, the news is here of the amazing flying taxis set to take to the air to transport visitors around the city. Moreover, if everything goes as planned, this could set a new page in aviation history.

As concern over climate change increases and years of doing something about it, at last, the aviation industry is set to deliver. There has long been talk of flying, environmentally friendly electric taxis and now, they are almost here.

Small fleet of electric flying taxis is on the way

Paris is set to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in the summer of 2024 and the City of Light is doing it in a big way. The plan is to have a small fleet of electric flying taxis operating on several routes in the city. There is competition, however, as China is also set to greenlight a pilotless taxi for two passengers.

However, hopefully, Paris will beat them to the punch by releasing the work of its prospective operator, Volocopter of Germany. Depending on whether the European regulators approve it, the City of Light could have the first-ever flying taxis.

According to AP, Volocopter CEO Dirk Hoke, a former top executive at aerospace giant Airbus, hopes to take French President Emmanuel Macron on a test run in Paris. Speaking at the Paris Air Show, where developers of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft – eVTOLS for short, were displaying their wares, Hoke said, “That would be super amazing,” adding that Macron believes in the innovation of urban air mobility and saying:

That would be a strong sign for Europe to see the president flying.

Still plenty of work to be done

Before flying taxis become a common sight, the industry still has plenty more work to do. For instance, the power of battery technology limits the range and the number of passengers they can carry. Due to this, the first eVTOL rides will probably be short and not cheap to start.

Naturally, as with aircraft, airspace management will be an important aspect of flying taxis. In the coming decade, manufacturers aim to release fleets in the cities, including niche routes for luxury passengers on the French Riviera.

Meanwhile, they need to work out the airspace problem so that flying taxis won’t crash into each other in the already congested air, where drones are already flying around. However, Billy Nolen of Archer Aviation Inc. said at first they will start on existing helicopter routes. From there on, they will “continue to scale up using AI, using machine-learning to make sure that our airspace can handle it.”

Flying taxis in Manhattan

Nolen’s company plans to have flying taxis running between downtown Manhattan and Newark’s Liberty Airport in 2025. He noted that this route is normally a one-hour train ride, or taxi ride, whereas their electric 4-passenger prototype could cover the same distance in less than 10 minutes.

Hopefully, the small, hoped-for experiment with Volocopter at the Paris Games will really take off (excuse the pun) and the world will see more major cities taking the same route by 2028.

Of interest to note, one of the planned Olympic routes will land in the center of the city on a floating platform of the newly scrubbed River Seine.

According to Hoke, this will be a “total new experience for the people.” However, he added that twenty years down the line someone will look back at what changed and call it a revolution, saying: “And I think we are at the edge of the next revolution.”

Readers can watch the prototype flying taxi in action in the video included here.