General Motors to invest $71 million on a new campus to expand its capacity for the development of flying cars and lunar rover vehicles

Back in January, General Motors (GM) unveiled a futuristic flying Cadillac — a self-driving vehicle that takes off and lands vertically and carries the passenger above the streets and through the air to be manufactured in the United States. According to the announcement, the single-passenger Cadillac is technically a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) drone that will be able to travel from urban rooftop to urban rooftop at speeds up to 55 miles per hour.

Now, GM is providing more details about the future mobility project. GM said on Tuesday that it would invest $71 million to establish a new campus in Pasadena, California to expand its capacity in advanced technologies such as flying cars and lunar rover vehicles. General Motors said the campus will include an innovation lab and immersive technology capabilities, including augmented and virtual reality.

According to the announcement, the new campus will be used for GM’s Advanced Design Center operations, which is part of a broader investment in building future vehicles. The Center will focus on developing concepts and future mobility projects that fall outside the scope of existing production vehicle programs.

In addition, GM also announced that it is also expanding its studios in Warren, Michigan, and Shanghai, China. GM’s advanced design operations work on projects that fall outside traditional vehicle design. BrightDrop, the automaker’s new logistics-focused division, the lunar rover concept, and Cadillac’s futuristic people-movers are a few of the projects to come out of advanced design studios.

Meanwhile, GM is not the only automaker making its foray into air taxi. Other bigger companies, including Boeing, Toyota Motor, and Hyundai Motor, are either working on similar concepts or partnering with technology startups, to develop air taxis of the future. For example, we wrote about Toyota in January of last year after the automaker made its first big bet on electric air taxis with a $394M investment in all-electric flying car startup Joby Aviation.

Below is a video of the flying Cadillac.