The man-carrying drone revealed at CES 2016 may work, but it’s quite ahead of its time

Within the last two years, drones have cultivated quite the stage presence at the annual Consumer Electronics Show, growing from merely four exhibitions to a landscape of what looks like dozens of nets scattered through all of South Hall 2. When you're a relatively unknown Chinese drone-maker, the only way to compete with well-established giants like DJI, and their next-generation of drones capable maintaining a stable position sans GPS, is by showing something utterly crazy.

This year at CES, that crazy happened to be a giant human-sized drone, which the Guangzhou, China-based Ehang, Inc. promises can carry up to a 220 pound person. And to back up the outrageous claim the company presented a video of it in flight.

Ehang 184, as the electric-powered vehicle is called, is a single-passenger aircraft that's able to reach altitudes ranging between 1,000 to 11,500 feet while flying for 23 minutes on a single two hour charge. The eight-rotor aircraft can reportedly fly a person to any Google Map position within reach; the passenger need only issue two commands—”take off” and “land” —on to the Microsoft Surface serving as its console. Ehang explains that should problems arise mid-flight, human operators housed in “command centers” will override the controls and safely land the craft for you.

The company says it wants to sell the 184 later this year at a price point between $200,000 and $300,000, which is a bit overly ambitious—not just because Ehang need build these centers first and foremost—but gaining government approval means overcoming an insurmountable amount of legal red tape that may require years of test trials.

But is there even a market for such a thing? Whether 184 is purely a publicity stunt or a vision ahead of its time, one thing is for certain: people are talking.