McFly.aero, a blockchain marketplace for urban air taxi, has started establishing infrastructure for flying cars in 23 cities across 13 countries such as Kenya, France, US, Ukraine, Russia, Sapin, Mexico, Nigeria, Japan, and Australia.
Nairobi has been identified as one of the launch cities for an ambitious flying cars plan. In these cities, the McFly community is putting in place a technological package for the installation of the air taxi infrastructure developed by the Blockchain.aero consortium.
How will it work ?
A flying car is a personal air vehicle that is designed for both air and ground transportation. It has been featured in animations such as Kim Possible, Ben 10…
The cars (VTOL) will be piloted automatically to improve safety. The idea is for passengers to be picked up at the heliport closest to their parking spot and dropped off at the nearest point to their destination.
Flying taxis will require infrastructures such as landing sites and charging points. Furthermore, they will require blockchain solutions to operate as well as maintenance services.
“The initial production cost will be $120,000 (Sh12m) per vehicle, but will come down to $30,000 (Sh3m) to $40,000 (Sh4m) once they go into mass production”.
“As far as fares go, the rides have an indicative price of $8 (Sh800) per minute, but pricing will be based on the grid’s load, and transactions will be made in McFly tokens on the blockchain”.
Solving the traffic congested cities
“People in large cities are tired of traffic; they will be happy to have affordable private flights. We have developed a three-phase program to create an infrastructure for flying cars,” Nik Bezhko, McFly.aero Lead Community Manager.
Flying taxis are great solutions to cities like Nairobi that are struggling with congested roads every day because they are ten times faster than traditional cars. What’s more, flying taxis are environmental-friendly because they have low emissions. They will be electric or hydrogen powered.
Manufacturers are set to have the first test flights between March and May 2018.
Sources: Kenyanwallstreet & Businessdailyafrica