Uber shares spike over report it's in talks to sell its flying taxi business that aims to have aerial ridesharing by 2023
Uber Technologies is in advanced talks to sell its air taxi business called Uber Elevate to aerospace firm Joby Aviation, according to a new report.
The news was first reported by Axios on Wednesday Uber shares rose six percent on Wednesday.
Uber Elevate was formed to create self-driving air taxis to take passengers between suburbs and cities it is currently still developing a flying taxi prototype.
According to its website Uber Elevate plans to have a fleet of small electric VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft in Dallas, Los Angeles, and Melbourne by 2023.
Joby Aviation, which is based in Santa Cruz, California, previously partnered with Uber Elevate and has raised more than $700million from firms like Toyota, Intel and JetBlue.
Uber Technologies is in advanced talks to sell its air taxi business called Uber Elevate to aerospace firm Joby Aviation. A view of a model of Uber's electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle concept (eVTOL) flying taxi on display at the second annual Uber Elevate Summit in May 2018
News of the talks led Uber shares to rise six percent on Wednesday before settling down a percentage point on Thursday
In January this year Hyundai Motor Co, announced a partnership with Uber Elevate to develop the electric air taxis.
Uber Elevate previously ran a helicopter service in New York City, but it was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Uber Elevate is best known for its annual conference devoted to sharing ideas towards making urban aerial ridesharing a reality.
Uber's business has been hard hit in the COVID-19 pandemic and the company cut 23 percent of its workforce in May as a part of its aggressive cost cuts and vowed to focus on its core ride-hailing and food-delivery businesses.
The sale comes as Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi focuses on gaining profitability and partially sold Uber's unprofitable self-driving and freight units.
Another view of a model of Uber's electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle concept (eVTOL) flying taxi on display at the second annual Uber Elevate Summit in May 2018
Earlier this year Uber revealed it was in talks to sell its Advance Technologies Group which focuses on autonomous vehicle technology to Aurora, a self-driving car startup.
Uber declined to comment at this time to DailyMail.com on the talks.
It's not clear if this sale will impact Uber Copter, the company's helicopter service from lower Manhattan to John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City.
On Tuesday Uber announced it completed a $2.7billion acquisition of food delivery rival Postmates.
Adding Postmates increased Uber's stake in the US delivery market by eight percentage points to 37 percent.
Doordash, who is the market leaders, has 45 percent of the share of US food delviery business, as per Edison Trends.
