Wisk Debuts Latest Air Taxi That Looks Like a Big Yellow School Bus With Wings
What also remains unclear is the production cost for Wisk’s latest model and just how loud it will be, two elements that have made wide-scale adoption of air taxi technology a hard sell. Wisk said this latest design is supposed to meet and beat safety expectations, boasting there’s a “one-in-a-billion chance of an accident.” The company has not revealed just what redundancies its introducing to fully make that claim.
Each seat has access to a touchscreen which the company showed goes over the pre-flight check with passengers.On their face, the stats of this latest air taxi design are similar to Joby Aviation’s latest offering. Last year, that air taxi company wasfrom Uber by a special purpose acquisition company headed by LinkedIn co-founder Reed Hoffman and Zynga founder Mark Pincus.
But what Wisk especially wants to help differentiate it from competition is the focus on its self-flying technology . Wisk notes in its release they believe autonomous flying is the “key” for air mobility companies. The company said this new aircraft should have improved sensors to detect and avoid obstructions it may encounter in the air. At the same time, there are “multi-vehicle supervisors that provide human oversight of every flight” who can also take over when needed.