The prototype of Pop.Up Next flying concept, co-developed by Audi, Airbus and Italdesign, successfully completed the first public test flight at Drone Week in Amsterdam.

The flying taxi concept combines a self-driving electric car with a passenger drone. Passengers can sit back and relax in a separate passenger capsule which can be autonomously docked with a flight module or ground module, meaning passengers can travel in the air and on the road without leaving the capsule.

A 1:4 scale model was the subject of the first public test flying, in which the flight module accurately placed a passenger capsule on the ground module then drove away autonomously.

Audi expects flying taxi would be a common service in large cities in the next decade. The next step  is to develop a full-size prototype to fly and drive, but before that Audi is testing in South America with the Airbus subsidiary Voom. When customers book helicopter flights in Mexico City or Sao Paulo, an Audi vehicle awaits to complete the customers’ journey to or from the landing site. It allows the company to understand how such an on-demand service could be run.