Flying Water Taxi

The company wants to build battery powered bubbleshaped ships that hover a few inches above the water and it's capable of transporting five people at a time. To unclog the busy street of Paris two entrepreneurs are building an egg shaped river shuttle which fly above the Seine the next iteration of which will be summoned by a smartphone and piloted by a robot. The company recently raised about 500,000 euros ($555,000). The company plans to build a battery powered ships that hovers a few inches above the water and they are capable of carrying 5 people at a time including a pilot. The company says that it will operate by the summer of 2017. Though shuttle is designed to control with a pilot it is trying to make its system fully autonomous in few years. The navigation rules on Seine don't permit the operation of vessels that lack a skipper. Anyhow the carmakers, software engineers and battery vendors are showing interest to help in developing the upgrades and scale production.The start up will sell the pods to individuals but the founders are in dilemma whether they want to manage a taxi services themselves or outsource it. Seabubbles plans to spend the money on building a full size prototype pods of 4.3 meters by 2.3 meters that can go as fast as 25 knots i-e, 29 miles per hour. The company has planned to showcase the first bubble at 2017 Las Vegas Consumer Electronics show in January.