Flying Taxis – Future of Air Mobility

Lilium is a German Company, based in Munich. Recently it was acquired under SPAC transactions for $584M by Qell Acquisition Corp. Lilium is working on sustainable solutions, which are capable of vertical takeoff. Tencent is one of the key investors in Lilium.  Volocopter, based in Bruchsal, Deutschland is another pioneer in the field of urban air mobility. Volocopter is developing electric vertical take-off and landing aircrafts (eVTOL), air taxis, for cities around the world and is backed by large investors like Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, a Chinese multinational automotive company, intel, Daimler etc

Dream of Flaying taxis, as a common medium for urban mobility is not not too far. Urban airport is working on ground breaking future mobility infrastructure. It is working on decarbonisation of cities by developing future electric vertical take-off and landing stations. The project is funded large Investors along with the UK Government and will reduce congestion and cut air pollution. Urban airport plans to install more than 200 zero emission sites worldwide over the next five years in response to global demand.

Green Shoots are also visible in India. Due to a significant increase in the population of India, there is an increase in traffic and metro lines in cities. Various initiatives are being taken by the government but the results are not much visible. Due to this, various startups have started working towards making flying taxis.

UDHAN Scheme Air Taxi Service was first launched at Chandigarh airport and was this year in January. This has been launched under the UDHAN scheme of the central government.  The first taxi was flagged off by the chief minister of Haryana. He stated that it was the first time in the country that a small aircraft was being used for service in the form of a taxi. It has the capacity to carry one pilot and three passengers. This taxi has the lightest plane, which is equipped with twin-engine in the real world. The service is available at the price of Rs 1,755 per seat.

Ubifly Technologies a Chennai-based startup, which works on developing e-planes in the country. The startup was established in 2016 and is commonly identified as an e-plane company. It is dedicated to working on the development of electric planes and unmanned aerial vehicles. The sole aim of this startup is to bring a new definition of intracity travels and develop their products accordingly.

Currently, the company is trying to come up with a hybrid mix of drones and electric aero plane technology. This vehicle will take off and land in the same way as a drone.

IIT Kanpur has signed MoU with VTOL Aviation India Pvt Ltd for developing Air taxies and the project is expected to get completed by 2023.

Money is moving towards Urban Mobility air solutions. Development is visible in terms of development of career capacity as well as the development of infrastructure required to support the landing and take-off.   According to estimates by NASA, the existing urban-air mobility market in the US. could be up of size of $500 billion. Indian government is committed for easing regulatory architecture for enabling the application, adoption and usage of air mobility.  Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has earlier said that Flying Taxis in India can be possibility under new Drone policy. India is seeing improvement in Start-up’s ecosystem. Ecosystem is maturing. After investors, large cooperates are also entering in backing the innovative ideas. In future, we may see some India based air mobility start-ups, emerging as a winner.  

Bureau Galactik Views

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