Volocopter has revealed its newest aircraft, the four-seat VoloConnect, during an online press conference at EBACE Connect.
The VoloConnect is a fixed-wing aircraft with two propulsion fans plus six electrical motors and rotors.
German company Volocopter says the lift-and-cruise design is set to transport up to four passengers on routes of 100km, with a maximum speed of 250km/h and a cruise speed of 180km/h. It has a fully electric drive and battery-swap system and multiple redundant and separate systems.
It’s the next stage in Volocopter’s development and sits alongside the two-seat VoloCity air taxi and VoloDrone which carries a payload of 200kg.
But, as Volocopter likes to point out, the aircraft are part of its ‘bigger picture’.
“All of our creations are part of a larger ecosystem bringing urban air mobility to life,” said a company statement.
“Just like our VoloCity, the VoloConnect will be linked to our VoloIQ air operations intelligence and VoloPort vertiports to offer the best possible flight and service experience.
“What’s more: Our design choices match the planned infrastructure perfectly.”
Volocopter’s Vision
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[envira-gallery id=”86638″]Volocopter is one of the longest lived companies in the booming eVTOL sector. It has been flying prototypes since 2011 including public test flights at Singapore’s Marina Bay in October 2019 and the world’s first autonomous eVTOL flight in Dubai 2017.
Founded in 2011 by Stephan Wolf and Alexander Zosel, Volocopter has 300 employees in offices in Bruchsal, Munich, and Singapore. The company has raised a total of €322 million in equity. Investors include Daimler, Geely, DB Schenker, BlackRock, and Intel Capital amongst others.
Florian Reuter, Volocopter CEO, said, “VoloConnect embodies the next dimension of our mission to offer affordable, efficient, and sustainable flight mobility solutions for cities around the globe.
“Leveraging customer insights from our existing VoloCity and VoloDrone, VoloConnect’s capacity to support longer missions and higher payloads serves another strong growing market demand.”
Volocopter’s Munich-based team of experts, led by Chief Engineer Sebastian Mores, have been working on the VoloConnect for over two years and filed several patents for its technology. They are already flying multiple scaled prototypes of VoloConnect and are progressing towards testing full scale prototypes.
