This Flying Drone Car Could Mean No More Traffic Jams

This thing could someday be your primary transportation — and that could mean bye-bye to traffic jams.

On Wednesday, Italdesign unveiled a car concept it's working on with Airbus. Yes, the plane manufacturer. You can see where this is going. 

It's called the Pop.Up. Here's how it works: Say you're stuck in a traffic jam in one of Italdesign's vehicles. A drone will show up overhead, latch onto the passenger compartment of the car, pick it up and take off.

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The bottom part of the car will stay on the ground. Its self-driving technology will hypothetically take it to a charging station while its former operator buzzes around in what is now, effectively, a helicopter. 

Drivers would share cars and hail them, kind of like the way they hail ride-sharing services now. 

It could still be awhile before anyone's buzzing around in a self-driving smart-copter. The companies just unveiled the concept, and each separate component — drones, self-driving cars, ride-sharing — is still tied up in some amount of regulatory red tape.