The Airbus Pop.Up is the autonomous car/drone mashup of your dreams

When you really need to beat traffic, do you ever wish your car could just take flight and soar above the streets right then and there?

Airbus offered antsy commuters a tantalizing look at a multi-modal ride hailing model with its latest far-fetched future concept, Pop.Up. The high-flying transportation system, brought to life through renderings and video with Italdesign, was unveiled earlier this week at the Geneva Motor Show.

The Pop.Up design is built around a small capsule about the size of a two-seat car cab. It's the one consistent feature between each mode of transport -- wheels and rotors would automatically attach to the capsule along the way, and it's even designed to link up to public transport systems like subway trains and hyperloops for the most direct route to your destination. You'd never have to jockey for a seat on the train ever again.

Pop.Up is meant to be totally autonomous and electric, providing service in the air and on the ground with zero emissions -- in theory, of course. The design is totally hypothetical at the moment, although the company brought a model of the cab with its rotors to Geneva for the showroom floor.

Pop.Up is designed for a future filled with megacities, which Airbus envisions having a whole new level of traffic congestion issues. It's built explicitly with ride sharing in mind, which is a running theme in many of the future-facing transportation concepts we've seen lately.

Pop.Up won't come even close to development anytime soon -- but it's not Airbus' only vision of autonomous air/land transport we've heard about this year. The company's CEO, Tom Enders, said in January that Airbus is aiming to have a working prototype for a self-piloted flying car by the end of this year. That design won't be ready for a public presentation until 2020, even if all goes according to plan. If you want a trip in a flying car in the near future, you'll have to book a trip to Dubai this summer for a jaunt the city's yet-to-be-confirmed autonomous passenger drone service.