Next year, "flying" will become a reality: 700 yuan for 10 minutes, 6 times faster than a car

Focus

• 1 Many companies around the world are developing air taxis (or electric flying taxis) that can take off and land vertically like a helicopter and cruise like a jet aircraft.
• 2 Air taxis currently under development can be divided into three categories, namely multicopters, vector thrust vehicles, and lifting plus cruise aircraft.
• 3 Industry estimates put the cost of electric flying taxis from development to certification at around $1 billion. Among them, the manufacturing cost will be between $2 million and $2.5 million, and as the business scales, the cost will drop to $1 million.
• 4 Analysts predict that the electric flying taxi market could be as large as $1 trillion by 2040, generating $2 million to $4 million per air taxi per year.
• 5The process of manufacturing, certifying, and operating electric flying taxis remains very expensive, uncertain and competitive. In addition, it is extremely difficult to obtain certification from regulatory bodies.

The image is generated by AI

The concept of air taxis has been around for nearly a hundred years, and people once imagined flying freely over congested city streets, revolutionizing the way people travel in the future. However, until recent years, significant progress has been made in the development of air taxis, and this year and next are seen as key years that will usher in an inflection point for the industry. A number of companies are now stepping up testing to become the world's first air taxi operator to be certified by regulators as soon as possible, thus going down in history.

A very fashionable electric plane with United Airlines blue and white livery is ready to take off. It can take off vertically, flying over congested city streets and whizzing toward the Manhattan skyline. For now, this is just a marketing video with CGI animation, but United Airlines and an air taxi startup called Archer Aviation say it will be a reality within two years.

Four-seater electric flying taxis will regularly travel between United Airlines' Newark airport and downtown New York. The companies said that the journey by car or public transport can take more than 1 hour, while electric flying taxis only take 10 minutes (about 5-6 times faster) and cost about US$100 (about 713 yuan) per passenger.

Many companies around the world are working towards similar goals: battery-powered aircraft that take off and land like helicopters, cruise like jets, and are approved by regulators for commercial use. Backers include high-profile companies such as Boeing and automaker Stellantis, with several companies scheduled to be operational in 2024 or 2025.

However, the process of manufacturing, certifying, and operating electric flying taxis remains very expensive, uncertain and competitive. Industry estimates put the cost of electric flying taxis from development to certification at around $1 billion. Those that succeed must demonstrate sufficient technical capability and capital, and give regulators enough confidence to believe that their aircraft are safe enough. They then need to price their products at a level that the public can voluntarily pay for.

Proponents of electric flying taxis promise that such trips will help escape the ground traffic congestion that plagues modern cities. But there will also be challenges, such as building the necessary infrastructure to ensure quiet operations in crowded cities and winning public acceptance.

Mike Leskinen, president of United Airlines' venture capital division, said: "We will have a highly valuable vehicle that can fly people over distances of 80 kilometers or less. The bigger question is, how do we get Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certified, how do we ensure [electric flying taxis] have the same safety standards as commercial aircraft, how do we integrate them into congested air traffic control and congested airspace? These are all issues that are much more of a concern than electric flying taxis. But they will change people's lives. It's just a matter of time, not if. ”

After years of hard work, and repeatedly missing expectations, the electric flying taxi industry is approaching an inflection point. The next 18 months will be crucial as several competing companies step up flight tests, which are critical to obtaining certification from regulators, likewise putting their resources under pressure. Some companies may have to turn to investors again before going public, as enthusiasm for tech stocks has worn off recently. Other companies may not be able to clear regulatory hurdles. In an already crowded field, not every company will survive.

John Cox, an aviation safety expert and former captain, said: "The people who really drive this concept of air mobility are visionaries. The aerial aircraft program is very ahead of its time, and there are still many challenges to overcome. ”

01 Leading competitors

The idea of flying taxis has been around for more than 100 years. Back in 1926, Henry Ford introduced the Ford Flivver, a flying car for the masses. Initially, Ford thought the Flivver's position in the aircraft field should shine as brightly as the Model T did in the auto industry. But after a fatal test flight, Flivver failed to get into production. There are many other examples of failures along the way.

Today, the main players in electric flying taxis are distributed in the United States and Europe, with competitors in China and Brazil. Some of them are start-ups, while others are backed by established industry giants such as Airbus, Boeing and Embraer. Boeing recently acquired California-based startup Wisk Aero, which plans to showcase its latest generation of electric flying taxis at the Paris Air Show.

Each of these aircraft needs to be certified by domestic regulators, but unlike conventional aircraft, this does not guarantee that they will be able to fly safely in other regions. Companies planning to launch electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles (EVTOLs) within three years are mainly developing three types of aircraft: multicopters, vectored thrust vehicles and lifting-plus cruise vehicles.

Among them, the multicopter looks most like a helicopter. They have no wings, shorter flight ranges, simpler production, and the industry believes they are easier to certify. The other two configurations combine rotors and wings. The lifting-plus cruise vehicle uses one set of rotors to help lift off and the other to help cruise to its destination. Vectored thrust vehicles use a set of rotors to lift off the ground and then tilt to propel them forward.

1.Archer Aviation

Archer Aviation was founded in 2018 by two former hedge fund analysts whose previous startup was an online recruitment platform. The company went public in 2021 with the backing of billionaire investment banker Ken Moelis. In March this year, Archer Aviation began construction of its plant in Georgia, USA, and plans to start production next year.

Archer Aviation's electric flying taxi, Midnight, is assembled from aviation components already on the market and is scheduled for its first test flight this summer. Black Adcock, co-founder Brett Adcock, who left Archer Aviation last year, said in 2021 that the company would release the craft in 2024, but the company now says it expects to begin operations in 2025.

2. Airbus

Europe's Airbus, which has deeper pockets than start-ups, has experimented with several concept electric flying taxis but says it won't compete with other companies or try to set records. Airbus wanted to develop something that could be another pillar of the company's business.

The Airbus electric flying taxi, called the CityAirbus NextGen, was divided into two distinct models, including the multi-rotor CityAirbus and the tilt-wing Vahana. Both models have fixed wings and V-tails, as well as 8 electric rotors.

300 million airlines

EHang is developing an autonomous flying taxi that does not require a pilot. Unlike most companies that plan to operate air taxi services, EHang plans to sell and manufacture aircraft for industries such as travel, firefighting or emergency medical services.

EHang executives told investors last month that the EH216-S has been certified "90 percent" by the Civil Aviation Administration of China's type certificate. The company's chief financial officer previously said EHang will begin operations in 2022. Special licensing already allows the company's aircraft to fly in certain areas, although it is not yet fully certified.

4.Joby Aviation

Joby Aviation was founded in 2009 and initially operated in a real estate barn in the founder's California. The company has close ties to Silicon Valley, with the co-founders of Pinterest and LinkedIn both on its board members. In 2021, Joby Aviation acquired Uber Elevate, Uber's flying taxi unit.

The vertically integrated company designed its own dedicated parts for the S4, which the company says is more costly but improves the end product and minimizes delays caused by supply chain disruptions. Each flying taxi is expected to generate $1 million in revenue when operated as an air taxi, according to a securities filing.

5.Vertical Aerospace

Vertical Aerospace was founded in 2016 by British energy entrepreneur Stephen Fitzpatrick and has always pursued a collaborative model. The company has partnered with Rolls-Royce and Honeywell to leverage their expertise to help speed up the path to certification.

Vertical Aerospace claims that the company's electric flying taxi VX4 will be "very quiet" and aims to be "below 50 decibels while cruising." It uses avionics based on the same flight control technology as the F-35 fighter. The company does not intend to operate the aircraft, but to sell it to customers.

6.Volocopter

Germany's Volocopter hopes to become the first electric flying taxi operator to fly commercially in Europe with its two-seat VoloCity aircraft as early as next summer, before the Paris Olympics.

The VoloCity multicopter has a unique aura (or beam) and consists of 18 fixed-pitch rotors and 18 electric motors, all powered by 9 lithium-ion battery packs. The battery pack can be replaced in about five minutes.

While most companies are start-ups, many have well-known backers. Stellantis owns Peugeot and Fiat brands in Europe and Chrysler brands in the United States. The company has agreed to purchase up to $150 million worth of Archer Aviation shares, while also producing Midnight for the company. United Airlines paid a $10 million deposit for a $1 billion order.

Toyota invested nearly $400 million in Joby Aviation, making it the company's largest investor, and Delta Air Lines also invested $60 million. Volocopter is backed by Daimler and Geely, while Vertical Aerospace has attracted investment from Honeywell and American Airlines. The British company also announced that it has received orders from American Airlines and Virgin Atlantic.

Several startups, including Joby Aviation, Archer Aviation and Vertical Aerospace, have been opened to public investors and have listed in the U.S. through special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Joby Aviation, which has raised $2.1 billion to date, is the most funded company in the space, followed by Germany's Lilium with $1.2 billion.

Unlike most of its competitors, Lilium wanted to use an electric jet engine embedded in four wings to help take off. The company has extended its certification date until 2025 and told investors in May that it is seeking a further $250 million in financing. Eve Holding and Wisk Aero, controlled by Embraer, raised $377 million and $775 million, respectively. The Vermont-based electric aircraft developed by Vermont-based Beta Technologies has also attracted significant investment, raising more than $796 million.

Over the past two years, investor enthusiasm for these electric flying taxi companies, whose shares have been significantly discounted to their listing prices, has declined due to increased economic uncertainty.

Sergio Cecutta, founder of SMG Consulting, which tracks developments in the air mobility industry, said aerospace is notoriously capital-intensive, but the amount of money raised doesn't matter, what matters is how effectively the company uses the funds to get certified. Until one of these companies becomes profitable, "death is still catching up."

Pictured: From the top left, clockwise are Vertical Aerospace's VX4, Volocopter's VoloCity, EH216-S, Joby Aviation's JAS4-1, The City Airbus NextGen, and Archer Aviation's Midnight

02 Technical challenges

Engineers designing electric flying taxis face a number of significant technical challenges. Vertical takeoff and landing (as well as hovering) requires more power than winged flight. The European Union's Aviation Safety Agency (Easa) said a vehicle with both functions had to make trade-offs, and the difficulty of vertical takeoff and landing added "a degree of complexity and risk, which seems to be underestimated by many stakeholders."

Batteries are less energy-dense than jet fuel, meaning electric flying taxis can't fly as far or carry as much weight. Farhan Gandhi, director of the Center for Vertical Lift Mobility at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, said that while the companies are using composite lightweight materials to help reduce weight, the energy consumed by air taxis is still high, "in a way, the battery you carry is heavy on its own, not to mention people and other payloads." ”

In addition, the battery is at risk of catching fire. There have been reports of at least two fires involving lithium-ion batteries in these electric flying taxis, including one involving batteries stored inside shipping containers. According to Gandhi, the three types of aircraft used by industry leaders have advantages and disadvantages, and the jury is still out on which one is the best.

03 Regulatory challenges

None of these air taxis have been certified by aviation regulators. In the United States and Europe, every company is required to obtain a "type certificate" to approve the design of the aircraft and its components. They will also need to obtain additional certifications to prove that the design can be mass-produced, and for those companies planning to test fly air taxis, official permits are also required to operate as air carriers.

In Europe, Volocopter has the most ambitious goal, with plans to have its VoloCity certified by the European Aviation Safety Agency as early as the second quarter of 2024. In March, Vertical Aerospace received preliminary approval from the UK's regulator, CAA. Mike Leskiening, president of United Airlines' venture capital division, said that in the United States, Archer Aviation plans to be certified by the end of 2024 and is in a "certification race" with Joby Aviation.

EASA is the only regulatory body to date to issue eVTOL-specific technical specifications. As part of the "Special Conditions for Vertical Takeoff and Landing" specification, the agency requires developers planning commercial passenger flights to adopt the safety standards currently applicable to commercial airliners: the chance of only one catastrophic failure in a 1 billion flight hours. The European Aviation Safety Agency envisages that air taxis will operate in large numbers with high frequency, rather than just taking off from existing airports.

David Solar, head of vertical takeoff and landing at general aviation and regulators, said: "We have to find the right balance between safety objectives because we know that a first crash can cause serious damage not only to one operator, but to the entire industry. ”

The Federal Aviation Administration has not specified a target safety level, but could set the threshold for one catastrophic failure per 100 million flight hours or every 10 million flight hours. FAA officials say their approach is just as safe as the EASA approach, but with a different philosophy. "Redundancy" (i.e. backup systems) is central to ensuring aviation safety. While European regulators want more backup systems in air taxis, U.S. regulators see pilots as an additional safeguard against disaster, especially given that air taxis are mechanically simpler than jetliners.

These differences could limit manufacturers' ability to sell or operate electric aircraft outside of certified regions, at least initially, lowering profit expectations. U.S. companies are looking to Japan, Canada and Australia, which are following in the Federal Aviation Administration's footsteps. It remains to be seen whether EHang's automation design can be certified outside of China.

Kirsten Riensema, senior head of air mobility at the Civil Aviation Authority, said: "These companies want to sell their electric flying taxis in more than one region. The better we coordinate, the better it will be for the industry as a whole and for ensuring safety. ”

David Salman, head of the general aviation and regulator's vertical takeoff and landing division, said EASA is working with the Federal Aviation Administration to minimize differences between certification standards and ensure "minimal changes in air taxi configuration" so operators can operate in both regions.

04 Functionality and safety

Exactly how air taxis fit into each city's existing aviation ecosystem is a work in progress.

To provide reliable service, air taxis will require suitable landing infrastructure. Aviation regulators are developing designs and standards for vertical airports. Unlike heliports, vertical airports may have to accommodate a wide variety of electric flying taxis depending on their size. They must also provide a charging port.

Passengers need to find a place to check in. At the same time, city dwellers need to be confident that these air taxis will not only keep quiet, but also fly safely.

Aviation regulators have begun working with local governments to agree on "flight corridors" that air taxi operators must comply with when flying, both for safety reasons and to minimize their potential impact on the urban environment.

Figure: How electric flying taxis switch from horizontal to vertical flight: Vector thrust vehicles can hover by changing the angle of thrust. For example, propellers can be tilted 90 degrees so they can switch from horizontal propulsion taxis to static hovering. The lift and cruise aircraft have one set of engines for horizontal flight, with lift provided by conventional wings, and another set of motors for hovering. In some cases, the motors used for horizontal flight are tilted to complement other motors. Horizontal flight of a multicopter involves supplying more power to a set of rotors, prompting gliding tilts and creating horizontal motion. Hovering is achieved by evenly distributing power across all rotors.

Operators also need to consider other factors, including noise, weather, and ride quality. While one air taxi may not attract attention in the hustle and bustle of the city, groups of air taxis can make a huge noise. Sergio Sequeta, founder of SMG Consulting, which tracks developments in the air mobility industry, said the problem is like "bees and hives." You will never hear the bees, but if you walk up to the beehive, you will hear loud noises.

Aviation safety expert Cox noted that the range of these air taxis will also be limited. When they encounter bad weather, they will need enough places to land before the batteries run out. Companies need to plan alternative routes in advance. He added: "There are very serious and complex airspace issues that need to be addressed, for example, you need to have at least three or four places where you can land temporarily. ”

05 Operations and costs

Some analysts predict that the electric flying taxi market could be as big as $1 trillion by 2040.

Balkiz Sarihan, head of air traffic at Airbus Cities, said: "We are not looking to use the first air taxi market as an entry point. There's still a lot of technology that needs to be perfected to be more mature and build trust with people willing to take air taxis. ”

For those companies that promise short, fast, stress-free transportation, they are marketing passengers products that are priced as taxis and cheaper than helicopters, while trying to balance development, mass production and operating costs. Alan Epstein, a former industry executive and professor emeritus at MIT, said: "There's no doubt that you can build these air taxis. The question is, will there be economic benefits? ”

Epstein added that to recoup manufacturing costs, companies need to mass-produce these electric flying taxis, so "who will pay for the losses in the first five years of transportation?" ”

Adam Goldstein, CEO of Archer Aviation, said the initial manufacturing cost of electric flying taxis will be between $2 million and $2.5 million, dropping to $1 million as the business scales. They have fewer parts, lower maintenance costs and operating costs will be spread over more trips than helicopters.

While Archer Aviation did not say when it would be profitable, Goldstein said each air taxi could generate $2 million to $4 million a year, and unlike electric startups in the auto industry, air taxis don't need to be mass-produced millions to succeed.

Stephen Fitzpatrick, CEO of Vertical Aerospace, warned that the process of success in the electric flying taxi industry has been very slow. "Will we see a flood of electric vertical take-off and landing air taxis flying over our cities in 2025? Unlikely. Whenever certification is obtained, it requires a process of industrialization and scale, and that takes time. ”

06 Key years

Executives from several air taxi companies are preparing for what they call a critical year for electric vertical takeoff and landing flights. Volocopter CEO Dirk Hoke wants to be the first company to enter the market, becoming the world's first air taxi operator, both to go down in history and to gain first-hand experience that he believes is crucial in how to operate the new system. "No one will remember the second one," he said.

Paul Sciarra, executive chairman of Joby Aviation, said the company will deliver electric flying taxis to the U.S. Air Force early next year. He compared it to Uber's black car launch in San Francisco in 2010, when the latter, while limited in scale, proved that its underlying concept was viable.

"People have been talking about air taxis and flying cars for a long time," Ryala said. I think this year, or in the next 12 months, air taxis will start to become a reality. The introduction of any new technology goes through many steps to truly materialize. There's still a long way to go before making it part of people's daily commutes, but it's important that we focus on the steps to make that happen, and we do think that's crucial. (Golden Deer)