September 16, 2019 – Who would not like to know what the future holds? Thousands of visitors in Stuttgart found out what the future has to offer in the way of mobility solutions. The highlight of the event "Vision Smart City – Experience the mobility of the future today" around the Mercedes-Benz Museum was the first urban flight of a Volocopter air taxi in Europe.
Electrically powered, 18 rotors, ultra-modern assistance systems and more than 100 microprocessors – the Volocopter is packed with technology. It waited patiently on the Museum mound, ready to take its first flight over a European city. Florian Reuter, CEO of Volocopter GmbH, gave the starting signal for the flight. And off it went.
Ola Källenius, Chairman of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz AG and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Cars: "Our partner Volocopter shows how the air taxi is turning the dream of driving into the dream of flying. Mercedes-Benz, too, is working on the mobility of the future. By 2022 we will have electrified the entire Mercedes portfolio. It is envisaged that electrically powered cars will account for more than half our sales by as soon as 2030. We can only take the road to climate-neutral mobility together and with interaction between companies and politics. We at Mercedes-Benz want to, can and will make our contribution to this."
A glimpse of tomorrow
An air taxi is one variant of the mobility of the future. The city of Stuttgart, the state of Baden-Württemberg, Mercedes-Benz AG and Lab 1886 jointly presented more than 40 further exhibits: the research vehicle F 015, the Vision Van, the smart vision EQ fortwo, test drives with a fuel cell vehicle, autonomous-parking Mercedes-Benz, autonomous virtual reality trips or augmented reality city simulations - just to name a few.
