Book Excerpt: Flying Taxis and Partnerships
My new book “Flying Vehicles” (The Emergence of Personal Air Travel, Flying Cars, and Air Taxis) is now published as advanced air mobility (AAM) begins to reshape the movement of people and things around the world.
The book is based on months of research and interviews with industry executives, and provides an in-depth and horizontal view of the new electric flying vehicle landscape.
Included are numerous discussions in a worldwide look at the role of airlines, automakers, technology companies, vertiport developers, showrooms and investors, all pushing the industry ahead.
Here’s a small excerpt from the chapter “Flying Taxis,” one element in the wide range of flying vehicle dynamics discussed in the book.
The following short is from the chapter relating to the development and coming launch of flying taxis and how partnership play a major role.
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In all the business aspects relating to flying vehicles, the largest scope relates to flying taxis, which fall into the category of CAV (commercial aerial vehicle). These are planned around the world and are intended to shuttle passengers between locations that may be too short for a traditional airline flight but a bit long for a practical drive.
Flying taxi operations often involve partnerships, primarily due to the complexity of operations, the large number of stakeholders, and the required resources.
One good example of this is Volocopter, a 10-year-old German company that has created partnerships around the globe for its eVTOL flying taxis. Volocopter has a trio of flying vehicles: VoloCity Air Taxi, the VoloRegion long-haul passenger vehicle, and the VoloDrone heavy-lift cargo drone. The two-seater VoloCity has 18 propellers, nine batteries, and a 17-mile range.
While the company is headquartered in Germany, it has been conducting flight demonstrations of its Air Taxi in cities around the world. However, flight demonstrations are just a light sampling of the depth of Volocopter’s partnerships.
In Italy…