READY FOR THE WORLD’S FIRST SELF-DRIVING AIR TAXI?

Neither are we, but Wisk Aero in California built it anyway.

The all-electric four-seater takes off and lands vertically, gets up a cruising speed of almost 140 miles per hour, and is designed to fly at altitudes of 2,500 to 4,000 feet—just over 1,200 meters—above ground.

Since 2010, Wisk has built and tested six generations of its craft, the newest of which “represents the first-ever candidate for FAA certification of an autonomous, passenger-carrying, electric, vertical take-off-and-landing air taxi,” the company says in a promotional release.

It becomes less easy to dismiss Wisk when you know the company it keeps.

It has backing from the Kitty Hawk Corporation, an air taxi development firm started by autonomous-car pioneer Sebastian Thrun with funding from Google co-founder Larry Page.

Boeing also has put money into Wisk.

Over the past 12 years, Wisk has conducted 1,600 test flights of its various taxi designs, all without an accident, it says—although flights are, and will be, continuously monitored by humans at a control station on the ground, it promises.

The company is aiming at a passenger charge of $3 per mile.

TRENDPOST: Given the random mistakes that self-driving cars have made and continue to make, it likely will be years before more than a handful of daredevils will be willing to commit their physical survival to a self-flying aircraft.

The main function of Wisk’s newest skyhopper is to sow the concept of a self-driving air taxi in the public mind, both to create interest and buzz and to accustom people to the idea that such a seemingly outlandish possibility can become normal.