Uber's first attempt at an electric passenger drone has been unveiled.

The company showed off a full-size model of the helicopter-plane hybrid on Tuesday at its Elevate conference in Washington, DC.

The aircraft's electric batteries allow it to fly emissions-free at speeds up to 150 mph, the design team told Business Insider.

WASHINGTON, DC — Uber has unveiled its first electric passenger aircraft prototype.

The vehicle, on display for the first time, at the company's Elevate conference in Washington on Tuesday, can carry up to four passengers and looks like an airplane-helicopter hybrid, different from some of the more futuristic drones that have been designed.

It's being designed through a partnership between Uber and a company called Jaunt Air Mobility. They aim to have a working model in the air by 2023.

"It's called the compound aircraft, and what it's doing is really trying to get the best of both worlds of hover and high-speed efficient flight," Mark Moore, Uber Elevate's head of engineering, said.

"That's why you see a large rotor, which lets it hover very quietly, go through the transition to horizontal flight. As it gets to higher speed, then the lift is generated by the wing, so the rotor slows down and it just kind of slowly rotates.

"Almost none of it is being generated by that rotor. It's all by the wing, because it's so much more efficient to generate lift by a wing."

Inside the cockpit of Uber's first full-size passenger-drone model. Graham Rapier / Business Insider

The combination of an airplane-like wing and helicopter-esque rotor will let the aircraft remain level at all times during flight, the designers said. It also means fewer complicated flaps and wing parts.

"This can take off and land from a 50-foot pad, just like a helicopter," Martin Peryea, Jaunt's chief technology officer, said. "It can just cruise a lot faster than a helicopter, up to 150 miles per hour."

That means the aircraft can take a 20-mile trip across a city in a few minutes. What's more, it will be far cleaner than the carbon-burning helicopters crossing cities like New York, and quieter.

At launch, the aircraft will be as cheap as an Uber Black ride, Uber's head of its Elevate division, said.

Eventually, it can be even cheaper than car ownership on a per-mile and per-set basis.

"These vehicles can't just have an economic mission; they have to be green," Elevate's Eric Allison said. "They have to be responsible in the communities in which we are working. We believe that means they have to be battery powered and quiet."