British carmaker Rolls-Royce revealed the plans to develop a hybrid electric vehicle, dubbed the "flying taxi", which takes off and lands vertically at the Farnborough Airshow for the first time, as other players also rush into the market segment.

Other companies researching the sector include US taxi-hailing company Uber, the Google-backed Kitty Hawk project, Lilium Aviation in Germany, Safran in France, and Honeywell in the United States.

Rolls said it hoped to manufacture a prototype version of its electric vertical take-off and landing (EVTOL) vehicle within the next 18 months, and could potentially take to the skies in the early 2020s

The aerospace sector's push into electric propulsion has drawn comparisons with the automotive industry, where electric cars are gaining ground in terms of popularity and performance. The real market opportunity will likely be a scaled up version of 10-15 seats that can serve a wider variety of applications, according to Stewart.

The hybrid vehicle, which has so far cost single-digit millions of pounds to develop, will use a traditional gas turbine engine with an electrical system wrapped around it. Rolls-Royce is also researching an all-electric product but that is not as advanced as the EVTOL offering.

The Rolls-Royce EVTOL plane will seat four or five people, with a flying range of 500 miles (805 kilometres) and a top speed of 200 miles per hour.