Airbus has developed a Pop.Up drone-car concept which was showcased at the 87th Geneva International Motor Show.

Airbus has developed a Pop.Up drone-car concept which was showcased at the 87th Geneva International Motor Show.

Logistically, Pop.Up is part of Airbus’s Project Vahana, a vision of the company’s A^3 advanced projects and partnerships unit located in Silicon Valley — an area prone to gridlock, Airbus has noted. Project Vahana focuses on developing a self-piloted flying vehicle platform for passengers and cargo — and Pop.Up. is a passenger component.

Pop.Up combines a two-seater capsule with either a carbon-fiber “ground module” vehicle chassis or a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) “air module” depending on the consumer’s choice — by land or by air. And yes, it can be summoned by smartphone app.

Dimensionally, the capsule is about 8 feet long, 4 feet tall and 5 feet wide. As a car, it has a roughly 80-mile range; as an eight-rotor aircraft, it has a roughly 60-mile range — though in either case, charging time per chassis is a mere 15 minutes.

The concept, Thomsen said, can fly or drive autonomously or even interface with other transportation systems like the hyperloop.