Before the Uber flight could take off, Uber Chief Product Officer Jeff Holden announced the breaking news of his departure. Uber Chief Product Officer Jeff Holden oversaw the company’s “flying taxi” division.
After working for four years in the ride-hailing company, Jeff Holden took a really odd time to leave the company. Just 10 days ago, Holden was a key cog at last week’s Uber Elevate Summit in Los Angeles. And that is because Uber Chief Product Officer Jeff Holden oversaw the company’s “flying taxi” division.
Before being hired by Uber in early 2014. Holden spent three years at Groupon as a senior vice president of product management. Earlier in this career, Holden invested nearly a decade with Amazon where he helped develop the popular Prime membership program.
But now bigger or as Uber says, ‘unknown opportunity’ has made its way to Holden’s future.
Before taking you to the future journey, here’s what the company had to say about the sudden and shocking departure of their Chief Product Officer and how it will affect the future project, that he was handling:
An Uber spokesperson told the Financial Times that as demonstrated by last week’s Uber Elevate Summit. The company’s incredibly bullish on the future of aerial ride-sharing. Under the leadership of Eric Allison. The spokesperson added, the Elevate team is set up for success and will continue to chart the course for this growing industry.
Uber’s Flying Taxis Are Not Far Away Says Uber:
The sudden departure of Jeff Holden won’t be a setback in one of the mega business events of the company. Uber believes that the project will be accomplished in the same manner under the leadership of Eric Allison.
Uber said earlier this month that it aims to begin testing of its flying taxis in 2020. Ahead of a public roll-out in Los Angeles and Dallas by 2023.
What Can We Expect From Uber’s Flying Taxis?
While flying cars seems a bit cartoonish, Uber thought of taking the flying pilot craft to reality.
Technology updates are just blowing our minds every single day and this time, technology produced a battery-powered, four passenger-plus pilot craft that uses rotating wing propellers for vertical take-offs and landing.
This is what Uber has proposed for its future project:
The concept of Uber’s flying taxis goes something like, aircraft take off from dedicated rooftop launch pads, and has suggested that at scale such rides would not cost that much more than a premium Uber car ride while saving 70% off the travel time.
I can’t even imagine having such a fancy ride to the office. But I have just imagined the look on people’s faces when they’ll see me getting off the pilot craft. Though it will be rented, who cares?!
Uber Elevate – Los Angeles Heard Some Absurd Ideas:
Uber held its second annual “flying taxi” conference in Los Angeles and we heard a bunch of weird yet cool ideas at the meeting.
This is what we found about the drone-helicopter hybrids that you could use to fly across town sometime.
But some weird questions start popping up in the tech blogs soon after the meeting. Like what if this thing never landed, who will bring this to the ground? What if it doesn’t get off the ground? But there are some companies that will gain your trust a little.
These Five Companies Are Working With Uber In Its Future Project:
Embraer and Pipistrel Aircraft, two aircraft manufacturers that are working with Uber, released new concept images of aircraft. They plan on building for the ride-hailing company’s ambitious project. And California-based Karem, which is the latest aircraft manufacturer to partner with Uber, had a new vehicle to show off as well.
In addition to Karem, Embraer, and Pipistrel, Uber is partnering with Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences and Bell (formerly Bell Helicopters) to develop aircraft for the flying taxi project. (A previous partner Mooney is no longer working with Uber.)
Here’s what Uber Ceo had to say about this future project of his.
Speaking at an investor forum in Tokyo, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi predicted that his company’s Uber Air flying taxis will be commercialized and used widely within the next five to ten years. According to Reuters, which earlier reported on the event, Khosrowshahi said that he believes the flying taxis, which instead of riding on roads will carry passengers around an area at low altitudes, will actually become affordable means of travel for consumers.
So whether you believe it or not, Dara Khosrowshahi believes that this flying ride-hailing service will soon become an “affordable means of travel for consumers”.
So basically, these flying aircraft are going to be produced by these amazing aircrafts manufactures and Uber believes that they will build nothing but amazing means of transportation for the company’s customers.
We can’t wait to witness the option of renting an aircraft on our Uber’s application, it’s just too freaking cool!
