Audi, Airbus and Italdesign Unveil Next Gen Air Taxi at Geneva Auto Show 2018

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, Italdesign made a splash at the 2018 Geneva Motor Show by presenting a 5-piece limited edition supercar (Italdesign Zerouno Duerta) as well as a concept of a modular system (wheel and wheel) for future mobility, developed with Airbus and Audi. The concept? Pop.Up Next.

Exactly one year after having unveiled its Pop.Up concept at the Swiss car show, Italdesign revealed the advanced concept Pop.Up Next in Geneva, the first fully electric, zero emission modular system designed to help solve traffic congestion in large cities and urban areas. Pop.Up Next consists of a modular and multimodal system that allows transport to enter the third dimension by exploiting both urban land and airspace.

Italdesign say that Pop.Up Next represents a vision of the potential of future technologies, the new concept of transportation, and new solutions to solve the problems of urbanism and traffic in large urban centers that are becoming more and more of a priority for safeguarding our planet. The proof of the success of the Pop.Up Next concept will be if it lives up to Italdesign’s 50th anniversary celebration intentions, that is to anticipate the challenges of the next 50 years.

As an original project, the Pop.Up Next system aims to give urban drivers more time, freeing them from the need to drive, thanks to a new flexible, shared and adaptable way of getting around cities.

The Pop.Up mobility concept combines the flexibility of a small two-seater land vehicle with the freedom and speed of a Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) vehicle, reaching into both the automotive and aeronautics space. The focus of the product is to present a modular, multi-modal vehicle.

Inside the Pop.Up Next, the seats have been completely redesigned using an approach that combines the aerospace world with the automotive world. The extremely lightweight aluminum structure is accompanied by an ultra-lightweight mesh structure that combines excellent grip and passenger comfort, all weighing significantly less than the first 2017 Pop.Up concept.

Jörg Astalosch, CEO of Italdesign, says the unveiling marks a new phase in transport. “Last year Pop.Up marked a new — and as we believe highly significant — chapter in the transportation sector by bringing together two worlds, road mobility and air transport, which had never previously met,” he said.

“The close cooperation with the premium brand Audi confirms that the project could become the standard bearer for future mobility, based on new technologies, sustainability, digitalisation and urbanization; all sectors in which Audi is a leading company. These are also the pillars that underpin Audi’s strategy and are fully embodied in Pop.Up Next. So we are proud having been asked to show this idea as Audi – engineered by Italdesign, following our Human Centred Design and Engineering approach.”