“Germany still has a lot to do in passenger transport law,” said Uber boss Dara Khosrowshahi in an interview. The obligation to return rental cars between two trips “fell out of time”. It leads to unnecessary empty trips and is pointless in a country that attaches so much importance to environmental protection.

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The regulation prevents Uber from expanding its service to smaller cities. It also makes it more difficult to switch to electric cars, said Khosrowshahi of Welt am Sonntag .

“Air taxes are realistic” Uber also operates in Germany licensed rental car companies that are subject to the Passenger Transport Act and carry out transport orders with employed chauffeurs with a passenger transport license. The law requires that these rental cars return to the company’s headquarters after a trip, unless another order has already been received there and passed on to the driver. The taxi industry accuses Uber of massive and systematic violations of this return obligation.

Khosrowshahi sees air taxis as realistic say, in ten years they could reach the commercial mass market – and not just for the rich, but for everyone. “Just as Tesla leads the production of electric cars, we want to lead the electrification of the transport networks,” said the Uber boss. Until the beginning 2018 Uber was in a legal dispute with the Google sister company over allegedly stolen technology for autonomous cars. Volkswagen, Ford and Tesla also want Khosrowshahi in the network. Uber has been researching autonomous driving for six years; 2018 occurred m