Not sci-fi anymore: Flying taxis are all set to disrupt aviation
Imagine you are asked to travel for an emergency meeting during rush hour from Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) in Mumbai to an SEZ in Airoli (Navi Mumbai). Or there is a medical emergency at your home in West Delhi while you are out for work in Gurugram. In both situations, since the commute can take up to two hours in rush hour traffic, you can consider a helicopter ride to cut down on travel time. But, a chopper requires regulatory permissions and can be prohibitively expensive. Soon, you will have another option that is equally efficient and more economical—the electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL).
The US-based Vertical Flight Society, which has been working towards advancing vertical flight technologies since 1943, has identified more than 700 eVTOL designs from nearly 350 companies and innovators worldwide. Companies such as Airbus, Boeing, Eve Air Mobility (a subsidiary of Brazilian aircraft maker Embraer), Toyota and electric aerospace firm BETA Technologies are working on advanced prototypes to obtain certification from regulators such as the European Union Aviation Safety Association or the Federal Aviation Administration to launch them commercially.
After putting in place an enabling ecosystem for the local drone industry, India too is looking at becoming a hub of eVTOL manufacturing. “The concept of flying cars that we saw in [movies such as] Blade Runner and Star Wars while we were growing up is today a reality,” Jyotiraditya Scindia, Minister of Civil Aviation, told an industry gathering in Bengaluru in March while referring to old Hollywood sci-fi cult classics. Extending an invitation to global firms, Scindia said, “We are willing to become equal stakeholders with you; partners in progress in setting up what will be the seeds of a new transport revolution starting with India.”
Like vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) drones, eVTOL aircraft use electric power to hover, fly, take off and land vertically. In the past few years, growing interest in exploring new vehicles for urban air mobility and advances in electric propulsion have led them to be considered a viable option. Current prototypes are available in the 6-10 seater configuration. Air-taxi maker Eve Air Mobility estimates that India, the world’s fastest-growing aviation market, may need 4,000 electric craft by 2028.
Stakeholders, meanwhile, swear by the upcoming technology. Other than economical fares, the cost of the electric craft will keep reducing as production gets scaled up. Since an electric craft—like an EV—is powered by batteries, its operational and maintenance costs will be much lower. “The economical fares will democratise the market for short-haul air mobility services. How much they will come down [by], one wouldn’t know at this stage but over time, there would be a significant drop in passenger fares,” says Amit Dutta, MD & Co-founder of Hunch Air Mobility, a JV between Hunch Ventures and BLADE Urban Air Mobility. “The other advantage of eVTOLs is that they make very little noise. Imagine, if you have 100 helicopters flying around in Bengaluru, the noise would be unbearable. Most importantly, as there are no carbon emissions, there is a huge upside in sustainability,” he adds.
Also, the segment is expected to significantly disrupt the aviation space. “In the future, eVTOLs are going to spawn conventional take-off and landing of electric aircraft as well by accelerating changes like what has happened in the automobile industry,” says Satyanarayanan R. Chakravarthy, Professor of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Madras and Co-founder of transport tech firm The ePlane Company. The progression will involve smaller electric aircraft making way for bigger aircraft seating up to 70 passengers, like the ATR turboprops. “That will bring down the cost of flying by at least 50 per cent. Going forward, if you were to stretch the game towards autonomous flying, you can bring down the cost of flying by up to 90 per cent,” says Chakravarthy, who also co-founded the spacetech firm AgniKul Cosmos. The ePlane Co., which was incubated in 2017 at IIT Madras, is looking at providing aerial and delivery mobility through its craft. It has already test-flown a lab-scale prototype and is on course to do a full-scale prototype by the middle of this year.
The government is already working on an eVTOL policy in consultation with stakeholders. And if it wants the commercial roll-out to happen in the country by 2026, the policy will need to be announced in the next six months, experts tell Business Today. The framework is essential to build a robust ecosystem comprising vertiports, manufacturing facilities for high-density batteries and an efficient system of air traffic management to control conventional aircraft flying at 35,000 feet, eVTOLs at 2,000 feet and drones at 500 feet.
Meanwhile, to be among the first movers in the segment in the country, Hunch Air Mobility has proactively inked MoUs with four foreign firms—BETA Technologies, Eve Air, Jaunt Air Mobility and Skyports Infrastructure—for aircraft, battery charging infrastructure, urban air management systems and vertiports. “Many see the development of eVTOLs in the future, but it’s actually closer than it appears,” declares Hunch Air Mobility’s Dutta. Fasten your seat belts, folks!
@manishpant22
