1979 Rolls-royce Corniche on 2040-cars

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Even Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce have designed flying taxis

Think British-built taxi cabs and you're likely to think of the classic, black London taxis. However, there are British companies eager to take taxis to the skies — bearing vaunted nameplates. Aston Martin has created the Volante Vision Concept, which isn't a sports car, but a luxury VTOL aircraft. It is the product of a joint venture with Cranfield University, Cranfield Aerospace Solutions and Rolls-Royce, and Aston says it's a "near-future study" that previews a flying autonomous hybrid-electric vehicle. It's meant for both urban and inter-city travel. The hybrid powertrain would come courtesy of Rolls-Royce Electrical, which has already provided such systems for marine and train use. The Volante Vision Concept's design language has been overseen by Marek Reichman, who stated the following: "We are at the beginning of a new generation of urban transportation; vertical mobility is no longer a fantasy. We have a unique chance to create a luxury concept aircraft that will represent the ultimate fusion of art and technology. We have used forms and proportions that express the same devotion to design, engineering and beauty that shape our cars." The leather interior bears familiar, winged Aston Martin badging — though this time the wings are especially appropriate. Beyond working with Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce plc has also designed a flying taxi of its own. Similarly VTOL, Rolls-Royce's hybrid-electric taxi has rotating wings and uses a gas turbine engine paired to hybrid tech; it is designed to carry four or five passengers and offers a 500-mile range with a top speed of 250 mph. And Rolls, of course, as a major supplier of aircraft engines, knows a thing or two about flying. Rolls says that if there is a business case for the flying taxi, it could see production in the early-to-mid-2020s. The Rolls-Royce concept was presented Monday at the Farnborough Air Show. Related Video: Featured Gallery Aston Martin / Rolls-Royce Flying Taxis Image Credit: Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce plc Design/Style Aston Martin Rolls-Royce Technology Emerging Technologies Autonomous Vehicles Commercial Vehicles Future Vehicles Luxury Special and Limited Editions air taxi

The UK votes for Brexit and it will impact automakers

It's the first morning after the United Kingdom voted for what's become known as Brexit – that is, to leave the European Union and its tariff-free internal market. Now begins a two-year process in which the UK will have to negotiate with the rest of the EU trading bloc, which is its largest export market, about many things. One of them may be tariffs, and that could severely impact any automaker that builds cars in the UK. This doesn't just mean companies that you think of as British, like Mini and Jaguar. Both of those automakers are owned by foreign companies, incidentally. Mini and Rolls-Royce are owned by BMW, Jaguar and Land Rover by Tata Motors of India, and Bentley by the VW Group. Many other automakers produce cars in the UK for sale within that country and also export to the EU. Tariffs could damage the profits of each of these companies, and perhaps cause them to shift manufacturing out of the UK, significantly damaging the country's resurgent manufacturing industry. Autonews Europe dug up some interesting numbers on that last point. Nissan, the country's second-largest auto producer, builds 475k or so cars in the UK but the vast majority are sent abroad. Toyota built 190k cars last year in Britain, of which 75 percent went to the EU and just 10 percent were sold in the country. Investors are skittish at the news. The value of the pound sterling has plummeted by 8 percent as of this writing, at one point yesterday reaching levels not seen since 1985. Shares at Tata Motors, which counts Jaguar and Land Rover as bright jewels in its portfolio, were off by nearly 12 percent according to Autonews Europe. So what happens next? No one's terribly sure, although the feeling seems to be that the jilted EU will impost tariffs of up to 10 percent on UK exports. It's likely that the UK will reciprocate, and thus it'll be more expensive to buy a European-made car in the UK. Both situations will likely negatively affect the country, as both production of new cars and sales to UK consumers will both fall. Evercore Automotive Research figures the combined damage will be roughly $9b in lost profits to automakers, and an as-of-yet unquantified impact on auto production jobs. Perhaps the EU's leaders in Brussels will be in a better mood in two years, and the process won't devolve into a trade war. In the immediate wake of the Brexit vote, though, the mood is grim, the EU leadership is angry, and investors are spooked.

2020 Rolls-Royce Cullinan Road Test | Aboard the HMS Cullinan

A tenet of good writing says you can’t modify a superlative. “Very best” gilds the lily, and “one of the best” is a hedge. Best is all you need say. ThatÂ’s the spirit of the phrase “the Rolls-Royce of Â…,” which gets applied to any kind of thing, say a particularly nice vacuum cleaner. It's immediately understood — “Rolls-Royce” is all you need say. So itÂ’s a special occasion when the pinnacle of automotive excellence, and the symbol of supremacy in everything wrought by human hands, heaves to in oneÂ’s driveway. The Rolls in this case was the 2020 Roll-Royce Cullinan, the most expensive SUV in the world, this one costing $394,275. This Cullinan arrived in lustrous Jubilee Silver (a big improvement over the purple one our contributor Jason Harper drove a few months ago). The car appeared to be carved from a silver ingot. Our first-drive review back in 2018 called the three-ton Cullinan a monolith, and thatÂ’s spot-on. It looks imposing and not to be trifled with, like a British warship. And in fact this car was built to a nautical theme, with a two-tone interior of Charles Blue / Navy Blue. A hand-painted coachline of Charles Blue traced its gunwales. Cullinan even sounds a bit like a British warship (they have the best names). But its namesake is the 3,100-karat Cullinan diamond, the largest ever discovered, chunks of which are part of the Crown Jewels. The car is an enduring symbol of British Empire, though with a lot of German parts. What can one say? We drive a lot of expensive cars at Autoblog, but it's a bit hard to understand why there even is such a thing as a Rolls-Royce press vehicle. What sort of information could a critic impart? Do you expect to hear it wasnÂ’t nice? Well, it was. Was the V12 not smooth? Like English cream. Was it not comfortable? Its cabin was expansive and its seats accommodating, and its ride was every bit the “magic carpet” Rolls promises, with sensors alerting the air suspension of upcoming unpleasantries in the road surface. And like a magic carpet, the system settles the car back down to earth for a gentle landing when youÂ’ve arrived. Yet the self-righting wheel centers make it appear as if you'd never left. And who would benefit from criticisms, if there were any? Few reading this have the means, but those who do would likely choose something more anonymous for real-world use, such as a top-trim Range Rover. Even a Bentley Bentayga would be less expensive, if only slightly less attention-getting.