After Daimler and Audi, BMW additionally enters the taxi sector. In collaboration with Alaka & i Applied sciences, a younger American firm, BMW Designworks has developed a hydrogen taxi. It may accommodate 5 passengers, is powered by six electrical motors and may keep within the air till 4 o'clock.
The particularity of skai - it's the title of the passenger drone - is its powertrain. On this case, the start-up makes use of a gas cell drive, which supplies the required power to the rotors and should be refueled with hydrogen. Competitors makes use of giant, heavy batteries as power suppliers. A pound of hydrogen pill incorporates 200 occasions extra power than a battery of the identical weight, says firm founder Brian Morrison, explaining the selection of hydrogen propulsion.
Continuous from Hamburg to Munich
In keeping with the corporate, the tanks comprise between 200 and 400 liters of hydrogen, which ought to be enough for a distance of 644 kilometers - which theoretically corresponds to the Hamburg-Munich airline. Inside ten minutes, the tanks might be crammed.
As well as, the drone, composed largely of carbon composite supplies, has a relatively low whole weight, which additional will increase the vary. The payload of the plane ought to be 454 kilograms.
Electrical energy is generated in three gas cells, which in flip drives six electrical motors of 100 kilowatts every. In keeping with the producer, the flying taxi can nonetheless fly to the vacation spot even when two rotors fail. In case of emergency, there's a parachute on board that lightly slides the aircraft in the direction of the bottom.
The primary flight is imminent
In keeping with Alaka & # 39; i, the utmost pace ought to be 190 km / h. A median pace of 137 km / h is nonetheless way more environment friendly. Rivals equivalent to Lilium, Bell and Boeing promise taxi speeds above 250 km / h. The skai, in the meantime, is designed to be efficient, the corporate making certain most flights over distances of 16 to 241 kilometers.
Though the flying taxi can fly utterly independently, there should at all times be a pilot through the first check flights for security causes. If the aircraft then receives the approval, the start-up needs to make use of it for the common transport of passengers, but additionally as an emergency plane, for instance throughout pure disasters.
Increasingly corporations are seeing the air taxi as a method of transportation of the longer term. Consultants say that they may quickly begin in Germany as effectively. Alaka & # 39; i mentioned nothing concerning the starting of a sequence of skaïs. Nonetheless, the primary flight was imminent, as confirmed by a spokesman for the corporate.
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