A drone carrying a person. Now we’ve seen everything!
Hate driving in EDSA? Too poor to buy a helicopter? Well, drone manufacturer Ehang may have something for you. The company officially unveiled their 184 drone, an all-electric quadracopter that’s large enough to carry a person. Yes, this quadracopter can carry a person up to 260 pounds (give or take) anywhere within 16 kilometers or the drone’s 23-minute reach.
The Ehang 184 quadracopter is massive beast, easily the size of a small car, but it is still a quadracopter in its heart. In that regard, it sports 4 arms and a total of eight propellers. The inside of the 184 is airconditioned, and there’s storage in the back for a small backpack.
Just like most drones, passengers won’t have any direct control over the Ehang 184 – the drone works via a smartphone app so you tell it where to go and it’ll take you there, avoiding obstacles and hopefully not crashing you into the ground and killing you. Because that’s a very definite scenario, as the Ehang 184 is capable of going up to 100kph and flying as high as 11,000 feet.
As much as we want our future of flying cars, and other wonderful machines, we’re not going to hold our breath for the Ehang 184. There’s simply way too many things that can go wrong, and without manual controls, there’s very little for you to do (aside from pray to whatever deity you believe in that there’s enough of you to bury) if something does go wrong while you’re riding one. Not to mention the price – the Chinese drone company is pricing the 184 at a cool $300,000, or around 14.1 million pesos.
