Hyundai, GM serious about 'flying car' efforts

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[1/2] A Hyundai booth displays the company logo at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, U.S. January 16, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

DETROIT, June 14 (Reuters) - Hyundai Motor Co (005380.KS) and General Motors Co (GM.N) said on Monday they are pushing ahead with developing flying cars, with the South Korean company expressing optimism it could have an air-taxi service in operation as soon as 2025.

A GM executive said it could take until 2030 for air-taxi services to overcome technical and regulatory hurdles and reach commercialization.

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Hyundai is ahead of its previously stated timetable for rolling out air-mobility vehicles, Jose Munoz, the company's global chief operating officer, said in an interview broadcast on Monday at the Reuters Events Car of the Future conference.

Munoz, who is also CEO of Hyundai North America, previously said urban air taxis would be in operation at major U.S. airports by 2028 and perhaps earlier. He told Reuters on Monday it could possibly happen before 2025.

"We see this market as a significant growth opportunity," Munoz said, adding he was "very confident" of the technology's development.

Hyundai is developing air taxis powered by electric batteries that can transport five to six people from highly congested urban centers to airports.

Other automakers developing flying cars either alone or with startups include Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T), Daimler AG (DAIGn.DE) and China's Geely Automobile Holdings (0175.HK).

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"I think that there's a long pathway here," Pamela Fletcher, vice president of GM's Global Innovation team, said at the Reuters event. "2030 is probably a real commercial inflection point."

She added: "It's a very nascent space. There's a lot of work to be done on the regulatory side, as well as the actual technology side."

In January, GM unveiled a flying Cadillac concept. read more

Morgan Stanley has estimated the total addressable market for urban air mobility could hit $1 trillion by 2040 and $9 trillion by 2050.

In 2019, Hyundai, which has a dedicated Urban Air Mobility Division led by Jaiwon Shin, a former NASA engineer, pledged to invest about $1.5 billion in urban air mobility by 2025.

Munoz said Hyundai sees its flying cars serving not only residential customers but also transporting commercial cargo.

Hyundai does not want to sell flying cars as a simple transaction, but believes it can develop services around the vehicles, Munoz said.

Reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit; editing by Diane Craft

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Joe White is a global automotive correspondent for Reuters, based in Detroit. Joe covers a wide range of auto and transport industry subjects, writes The Auto File, a three-times weekly newsletter about the global auto industry. Joe joined Reuters in January 2015 as the transportation editor leading coverage of planes, trains and automobiles, and later became global automotive editor. Previously, he served as the global automotive editor of the Wall Street Journal, where he oversaw coverage of the auto industry and ran the Detroit bureau. Joe is co-author (with Paul Ingrassia) of Comeback: The Fall and Rise of the American Automobile Industry, and he and Paul shared the Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting in 1993.

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