 Hey everybody, this is Sean from The Verge and we are backstage at the rehearsal for Intel's big CES 2018 keynote and as you can see I'm standing in front of a gigantic flying car. This is the Volocopter. It's an 18 rotor electric helicopter that will hopefully someday become an autonomous vehicle, something that you could just hop in and take to wherever you need to go. Right now it's still in the testing phase and the reason it's here at CES this year is that Intel's been working with Volocopter to integrate all the technology that it has from its drone division into this to basically get this in the air a lot faster. I've never actually been in a helicopter before and this seems like it would be more terrifying than a helicopter, although when we watched it fly on stage it was very calm, it was very quiet and the video that they showed of Intel CEO Brian Kozanich flying it in Volocopter's headquarters, he seemed to enjoy it and it seemed to be a relatively controlled flight to begin with so I don't know, maybe it would actually be pretty fun. Let's back up a second. We've actually seen a lot of Volocopter over the last few years. The company hasn't been shy about sharing videos of its radical vehicle while they were testing it. It recently got a huge funding round from Daimler and the company even struck a deal to bring the air taxis to Dubai. But the Volocopter has never flown stateside. This is our first good look at the company and its air taxi in North America and they didn't just bring the prototype that flew on stage at the Intel keynote, they also brought the production version, which is what could actually shuttle passengers someday soon. Okay so now we're here with CEO of Volocopter Florian Reuter and what are we standing in front of? This is different from what you're showing off on stage at Intel right? Yes, so this is the Volocopter 2X, it's our latest model. The doors is the most obvious change to the overall structure that we've made. We've set the entire rotor level a bit higher, that's to have more passive safety. We now have more room inside the fuselage and of course we have much more room for the battery compartment. And where are you at for performance and endurance right now? So with the 2X we will reach 30 minutes of flight, which still isn't where people want it to be eventually but it is what we can live with based on the current limitations of battery technology. What is the target for Volocopter to start those kinds of programs? So the Volocopter really is designed to be used as an air taxi inside urban centers. So we're not targeting let's say large longer distances. We want to cover an urban center as good as possible and as efficient as possible. So I believe that with an endurance of about an hour we should be safe to do every relevant route in most of the megacities that we want to apply this technology. I've been told by some of the people at Intel that one of the benefits of working with electric motors and building this around electric technology as opposed to a helicopter which has many more moving parts and is far more complex is that something like this should be actually very easy to fly even if somebody doesn't have experience in a helicopter or something that requires a pilot's license. Does that mean I could really hop in this thing and actually fly it without any experience like that? Absolutely. It is so intuitive to fly. You can put a five-year-old in there without any explanation. It'll know how to maneuver this vehicle. It is so simple. So why don't you show me what you've got here in the production version. So welcome inside. What you see now is you have a lot of space, very comfortable to sit in. This is the autonomous version so you don't have the joystick here. In the regular piloted version you would have the joystick here that you can then command the directions in. This is where you would usually find the emergency handle for the full aircraft parachute. So again from a psychological perspective. I saw that in the prototype. Explain how a parachute works on a thing with 18 rotors. So actually that's the neat thing about the design of the helicopter. We don't have a rotor covering the center piece. So if the parachute shoots out, it of course is wired in a way throughout the entire fuselage. So it will hold the entire fuselage, the cabins with the passenger inside. And actually it's a ballistic rocket that's being shot out in order to inflate the parachute as fast as possible. And then it will descend the entire vehicle in a safe manner. This is far from the only company working on air taxis or flying cars or whatever you want to call them. This might seem like a crazy technology, but there are huge companies like Uber and Airbus and plenty of startups that are soaking up money to try and make all this happen. The whole idea with this partnership that Intel announced this week is that first off it's already been going. They've been doing all this work with Volocopter to integrate their flight control software, their motor controllers, stuff that they've gotten real, their expertise. They've cut their teeth on with all the drone stuff that we've seen here this week. They've integrated all that into this and helped Volocopter really just sort of move the schedule up on this fantastic idea. It doesn't mean that we're going to have flying cars and flying taxis tomorrow or next week or in the next five years, but Volocopter is going to get there a lot faster with help from a company like Intel. And on Intel's side, they get to work with a company that's doing flying cars. I mean, that's a cool thing to have in your roster of companies that you work with when you're a company like Intel. And you're constantly competing with other companies that are also doing cool stuff like autonomous cars and graphics chips and all this stuff. So I think this is the perfect example of what Intel is trying to show off at CES this year, which is, hey, our stuff is really powerful, but look at the cool stuff that it can power. Tell you what, it's tight. But this is kind of cool.
 Hey everybody, this is Sean from The Verge and we are backstage at the rehearsal for
 Intel's big CES 2018 keynote and as you can see I'm standing in front of a gigantic flying
 car.
 This is the Volocopter.
 It's an 18 rotor electric helicopter that will hopefully someday become an autonomous
 vehicle, something that you could just hop in and take to wherever you need to go.
 Right now it's still in the testing phase and the reason it's here at CES this year
 is that Intel's been working with Volocopter to integrate all the technology that it has
 from its drone division into this to basically get this in the air a lot faster.
 I've never actually been in a helicopter before and this seems like it would be more terrifying
 than a helicopter, although when we watched it fly on stage it was very calm, it was very
 quiet and the video that they showed of Intel CEO Brian Kozanich flying it in Volocopter's
 headquarters, he seemed to enjoy it and it seemed to be a relatively controlled flight
 to begin with so I don't know, maybe it would actually be pretty fun.
 Let's back up a second.
 We've actually seen a lot of Volocopter over the last few years.
 The company hasn't been shy about sharing videos of its radical vehicle while they were
 testing it.
 It recently got a huge funding round from Daimler and the company even struck a deal
 to bring the air taxis to Dubai.
 But the Volocopter has never flown stateside.
 This is our first good look at the company and its air taxi in North America and they
 didn't just bring the prototype that flew on stage at the Intel keynote, they also brought
 the production version, which is what could actually shuttle passengers someday soon.
 Okay so now we're here with CEO of Volocopter Florian Reuter and what are we standing in
 front of?
 This is different from what you're showing off on stage at Intel right?
 Yes, so this is the Volocopter 2X, it's our latest model.
 The doors is the most obvious change to the overall structure that we've made.
 We've set the entire rotor level a bit higher, that's to have more passive safety.
 We now have more room inside the fuselage and of course we have much more room for the
 battery compartment.
 And where are you at for performance and endurance right now?
 So with the 2X we will reach 30 minutes of flight, which still isn't where people want
 it to be eventually but it is what we can live with based on the current limitations
 of battery technology.
 What is the target for Volocopter to start those kinds of programs?
 So the Volocopter really is designed to be used as an air taxi inside urban centers.
 So we're not targeting let's say large longer distances.
 We want to cover an urban center as good as possible and as efficient as possible.
 So I believe that with an endurance of about an hour we should be safe to do every relevant
 route in most of the megacities that we want to apply this technology.
 I've been told by some of the people at Intel that one of the benefits of working with electric
 motors and building this around electric technology as opposed to a helicopter which has many
 more moving parts and is far more complex is that something like this should be actually
 very easy to fly even if somebody doesn't have experience in a helicopter or something
 that requires a pilot's license.
 Does that mean I could really hop in this thing and actually fly it without any experience
 like that?
 Absolutely.
 It is so intuitive to fly.
 You can put a five-year-old in there without any explanation.
 It'll know how to maneuver this vehicle.
 It is so simple.
 So why don't you show me what you've got here in the production version.
 So welcome inside.
 What you see now is you have a lot of space, very comfortable to sit in.
 This is the autonomous version so you don't have the joystick here.
 In the regular piloted version you would have the joystick here that you can then command
 the directions in.
 This is where you would usually find the emergency handle for the full aircraft parachute.
 So again from a psychological perspective.
 I saw that in the prototype.
 Explain how a parachute works on a thing with 18 rotors.
 So actually that's the neat thing about the design of the helicopter.
 We don't have a rotor covering the center piece.
 So if the parachute shoots out, it of course is wired in a way throughout the entire fuselage.
 So it will hold the entire fuselage, the cabins with the passenger inside.
 And actually it's a ballistic rocket that's being shot out in order to inflate the parachute
 as fast as possible.
 And then it will descend the entire vehicle in a safe manner.
 This is far from the only company working on air taxis or flying cars or whatever you
 want to call them.
 This might seem like a crazy technology, but there are huge companies like Uber and Airbus
 and plenty of startups that are soaking up money to try and make all this happen.
 The whole idea with this partnership that Intel announced this week is that first off
 it's already been going.
 They've been doing all this work with Volocopter to integrate their flight control software,
 their motor controllers, stuff that they've gotten real, their expertise.
 They've cut their teeth on with all the drone stuff that we've seen here this week.
 They've integrated all that into this and helped Volocopter really just sort of move
 the schedule up on this fantastic idea.
 It doesn't mean that we're going to have flying cars and flying taxis tomorrow or next week
 or in the next five years, but Volocopter is going to get there a lot faster with help
 from a company like Intel.
 And on Intel's side, they get to work with a company that's doing flying cars.
 I mean, that's a cool thing to have in your roster of companies that you work with when
 you're a company like Intel.
 And you're constantly competing with other companies that are also doing cool stuff like
 autonomous cars and graphics chips and all this stuff.
 So I think this is the perfect example of what Intel is trying to show off at CES this
 year, which is, hey, our stuff is really powerful, but look at the cool stuff that it can power.
 Tell you what, it's tight.
 But this is kind of cool.