Many corporations try to bring so-called air taxis to the mass market, but lack of regulations and infrastructure, in addition to safety concerns, are barriers.
Volocopter, which counts Daimler, Intel and Geely amongst its backers, plans to commercially launch drone-like taxis, which resemble a small helicopter powered by 18 rotors, inside two to 3 years.
“For commercial routes, we have two customer profiles: one is a business customer, so perhaps from the airport to the business center, or for tourists flying from Marina Bay to Sentosa,” Alexander Zosel said.
Zosel said the startup is on the lookout for more financial partners within the funding round it plans to shut in January 2020.
The company raised €85 million ($93 million) up to now, the newest in a 12 months €A $50 million tranche led earlier this 12 months by Chinese automaker Geely.
Daimler, Intel and Geely each own about 10 percent of the corporate, a Daimler spokeswoman said.
Volocopter says it has accomplished greater than 1,000 test flights: a few of them flown by humans and others remotely or autonomously on pre-set routes.
Zosel said the primary industrial flights might be pilots, leaving room for only one passenger, but he hopes to maneuver to totally autonomous flights in five to 10 years.
Singapore is one of the vital advanced countries on the earth in testing autonomous vehicles and plans to deploy autonomous buses in three districts of the island from 2022.
This article appeared within the print edition of the South China Morning Post as: Singapore challenges air taxis
