German eVTOL developer Volocopter has published a white paper, The Roadmap to Scalable Urban Air Mobility, outlining a full ecosystem to enable urban air mobility.
Volocopter is the first and only electric air taxi developer with Design Organisation Approval from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and is planning a commercial launch of its services in the next two to three years.
“Volocopter is leading the pack for implementing urban air mobility internationally,” said Florian Reuter, CEO of Volocopter.
“With our VoloCity and chosen go-to-market approach, we can fit into the existing ecosystem well enough to get started in the next 2-3 years. “However, to subsequently scale our operations in a safe and efficient manner and offer a fantastic experience to our customers, we need to establish a comprehensive and integrated UAM ecosystem. This is what we are doing together with our partners.”
https://youtu.be/nIB6utd8kec
Key points in the paper:
- The UAM industry is expected to have a €11.3 trillion market by 2035 with a €241 billion market potential. Over half of the market potential lies in passenger mobility (eg, VoloCity air taxi services), and the rest is covered by logistic-type, cargo services (eg, VoloDrone services).
- Strong partnerships and an ecosystem strategy will play a pivotal role for entry into the electric air taxi market and setting a precedent for future UAM services.
- The most successful approach will put the customers first in all critical areas including safety, infrastructure, aircraft design, air operations, city integration, and acceptance.
- Volocopter supports the high safety standards for air taxis defined by the EASA’s SC-VTOL and the progress with concurrent type certificate validation from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the US and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS).
- Digitalisation and autonomous flight will help decrease prices for air taxi services in the long-term. Volocopter is already underway to ensure that the aircraft produced can fly autonomously and that all various components of the UAM ecosystem can be connected using a digital backbone and platform, VoloIQ.
The white paper, The Roadmap to Scalable Urban Air Mobility, by Volocopter is available to download here.
