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Most Read: Air Taxi Company Opens Automated Takeoff-Landing Facility; General Motors Banned From Selling Driving DataMost Read: Air Taxi Company Opens Automated Takeoff-Landing Facility; General Motors Banned From Selling Driving Data
Also inside, flying taxi vertiport design approved for Dubai, quantum computing demonstrates EV energy management potential and more
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EHang
Here are the most-read stories on IoT World Today this week.
Air Taxi Company Opens Automated Takeoff-Landing Facility
Chinese flying taxi company EHang Holdings launched an eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) vehicle takeoff and landing site with a fully automated vertical lift vertiport.
The new exhibition center is in Shenzhen's Luohu Sports and Leisure Park in Guangzhou, China.
The new smart infrastructure and urban air mobility (UAM) platform was created for the commercial operations of the EHang EH216-S pilotless passenger-carrying electric aerial vehicle (EAV).
The first floor of the facility has a hangar and boarding area for passengers and the takeoff and landing pad enables rapid charging of EAVs.
General Motors Banned From Selling Driving Data
General Motors and its OnStar subsidiary have been banned from selling customer driving behavior and geolocation data in the United States for five years.
The measure was announced in a statement by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which said it had acted amid allegations that GM had collected, used and sold information from “millions of vehicles, without adequately notifying consumers and obtaining their affirmative consent.”
This data, which covered specifics such as journey lengths and how cars were driven (down to instances of hard braking and extreme acceleration), could be used to set insurance premiums.
And as an investigation by the New York Times discovered, that was exactly what was happening, with data being sold to insurers and third-party data brokers.
Flying Taxi Vertiport Design Approved for Dubai
Skyports Infrastructure has received technical design approval for a vertiport in Dubai, the first commercial vertiport in the United Arab Emirates.
The General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) approved the facility being built at Dubai International Vertiport (DXV), adjacent to Dubai International Airport.
Skyports is continuing with the development of its facility, where commercial air taxi operations are scheduled to begin.
The vertiport is the first to be approved under the newly established UAE Vertiport Regulations and the first of four being developed with Dubai Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) and Joby Aviation.
Quantum Computing Demonstrates EV Energy Management Potential
Quantum computing now can be used to forecast and optimize the energy supply needed to support the electric vehicle (EV) market, a recent demonstration has shown.
Energy operator EDF, quantum computing company Pasqal and French research organization GENCI used Pasqal’s 100+ qubit quantum computer to address the challenges posed by the growing complexity of energy supply and demand for EVs.
The experiment took place in France, where in 2023, 26% of new cars sold in France were EVs or plug-in hybrid vehicles, a 47% increase from the year prior.
This rise, combined with the growth of renewable energy sources, has created an environment that makes accurate energy demand and distribution forecasting more critical and complex than ever.
Amazon Halts Drone Deliveries in Texas, Arizona; Updating Software
Amazon has halted drone deliveries in Texas and Arizona as the company makes software updates to its MK30 delivery drone.
The company announced on Jan. 17 that it was temporarily putting a hold on drone operations to make software changes to the drone. Services are expected to resume once the updates are completed and approved by the FAA.
“Safety underscores everything we do in Prime Air and our MK30 drone is safe and compliant,” said Sam Stephenson, Amazon spokesperson. “It’s designed to safely respond to unknown events in a known way, and the overall architecture of the drone has performed as expected.”
The pause in operations was unrelated to drone crashes at the company’s Pendleton, Oregon, testing site in December. Stephenson said that the incident was not the primary reason for the pause and that Prime Air continued to deliver safely and within federal compliance until Amazon voluntarily pauses service on Jan. 17.
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