Skip to Content
Smart cities

Boeing’s electric autonomous passenger air vehicle just had its first flight

January 24, 2019

Boeing has completed the first pilotless test flight of its electric autonomous passenger plane at an airport in Manassas, Virginia.

What happened: The 30-foot-long plane took off vertically and hovered for less than a minute. The purpose was to test its autonomous functions and ground control systems, Boeing said. It’s designed to have a range of up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) and is intended to be for short journeys across cities. The biggest innovation is its electric propulsion system, as there are no electric-powered aircraft in commercial use right now.

Not a flying car: It’s a popular moniker, but misleading. This won’t be able to go from driving on roads to flying. It resembles a mix of helicopter and propeller aircraft, but no one seems quite sure what to call it yet. “Passenger air vehicle” just doesn’t quite have enough of a ring to it.

Next steps: Boeing said future flights will test forward, wing-borne flight, plus the transition between vertical and forward-flight modes. It admitted this will be a “significant engineering challenge.” It’s one of several companies, including Airbus and Uber, working on autonomous flying. It’s not quite clear who the target market is yet, though, beyond the uber-wealthy.

Want to keep up with the latest space news and technologies? Sign up for our newest newsletter, The Airlock!

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.