"A huge mess and a brutal end to a great project", Amélie Charnay concludes after talking to Francois Sillion. Uber's priority now lies elsewhere, but Uber's future ambitions for flying taxis aren't all buried just yet. A year ago, François Sillion gave a tour of the brand new premises of his Advanced Technologies Center in Paris. Tailor-made offices for the small team of Sillion and its researchers responsible for the development of software tools for the Uber Air flying taxi service.
But the adventure in Paris came to an abrupt halt last December. Hit by the pandemic, Uber had to make choices. Following the layoffs in the spring of 2020, it also ended its most hypothetical divisions of the company by leaving the autonomous auto division and selling Aurora and Uber Air.
“We diversify the services offered. After meal delivery, Uber Eats expanded to groceries, alcoholic drinks or flowers in France and the pharmacy in the United States. Our strategy is the Go and Get. The Go for mobility and the Get for what the user achieves ”
enormous frustration
It was decided to cancel the division Uber elevate to sell to the start-up Joby Aviation. The Paris center was immediately closed and the nine employees were made redundant for economic reasons. According to François Sillion he then threw the child with the bathwater away. T.echnological vision and its research activities were abandoned in order to cope with the financial consequences of a major pandemic. Sillion dreamed of seeing his work blossom. But the ax fell too soon, without being able to complete the initiated projects.
“We were thinking about getting bought out or taking over the company ourselves. But Uber refused for intellectual property reasons. "
All they hope for now is that they can still do the research to publish. But this is not clear. When submitting articles to scientific journals, it is necessary to be able to provide additional information at the request of the referees. However, the center was closed very quickly in December and they no longer have access to the code.
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