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Alauda Aeronautics to set up first eVTOL flying racing car factory in Australia ahead of upcoming Airspeeder racing series

Alau­da Aero­nau­tics is set to estab­lish the world’s first eVTOL fly­ing rac­ing car fac­to­ry in Aus­tralia, which will be the first of its kind in the South­ern Hemi­sphere and pro­duce the vehi­cles tak­ing part in the company’s forth­com­ing Air­speed­er rac­ing series.  

The state-of-the-art facil­i­ty is ear­marked to poten­tial­ly be locat­ed with­in the Aus­tralian Space Park, with the South Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment announc­ing a $20 mil­lion (AUS) con­tri­bu­tion towards the devel­op­ment. It is in dis­cus­sions with Ade­laide Air­port as the ide­al loca­tion iden­ti­fied by indus­try, due to its prox­im­i­ty to tra­di­tion­al aero­space com­pa­nies and the cen­tral busi­ness dis­trict.

Matt Pear­son, Founder of Air­speed­er and Alau­da Aero­nau­tics, said: “As our first elec­tric fly­ing car Grand Prix races draw near­er, we are proud to estab­lish the world’s first pur­pose built facil­i­ty for the pro­duc­tion of these pio­neer­ing rac­ing vehi­cles.

“South Aus­tralia is rapid­ly becom­ing a glob­al cen­tre of excel­lence in the devel­op­ment of advanced space and advanced aero­space tech­nolo­gies, place­ment at this facil­i­ty will cre­ate world-class oppor­tu­ni­ties for col­lab­o­ra­tion with com­pa­nies at the cut­ting-edge of their respec­tive fields. This in turn will rapid­ly accel­er­ate a mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion and place Ade­laide on the map as a world-class cen­tre of inno­va­tion.” 

The Aus­tralian Space Park will boost space man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ty and capac­i­ty by ini­tial­ly co-locat­ing four space man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies. As well as Alau­da, they include Fleet Space Tech­nolo­gies which was also co-found­ed by Pear­son, Q‑CTRL and ATSpace. The focus will be on col­lab­o­ra­tion and pro­duc­tion of small satel­lites and their pay­loads, rock­ets, eVTOL vehi­cles and sup­port­ing com­po­nen­try and tech­ni­cal sys­tems.

Fleet Space Tech­nolo­gies will also estab­lish its man­u­fac­tur­ing and R&D hub and help pave the way for knowl­edge and facil­i­ties shar­ing with tech enti­ties at the cut­ting edge of their respec­tive fields.

Announc­ing the devel­op­ment, Pre­mier Stephen Mar­shall said: “The cre­ation of the Aus­tralian Space Park sig­nals our com­mit­ment to the South Aus­tralian and Aus­tralian space sec­tor by bridg­ing the gap between research and devel­op­ment and pro­to­typ­ing to pro­duc­tion at scale.

“The Park aligns with Australia’s space strat­e­gy that aims to triple the space sector’s con­tri­bu­tion to GDP to over $12 bil­lion per annum and cre­ate up to an addi­tion­al 20,000 jobs by 2030. It is the next step in posi­tion­ing Aus­trali­a’s space com­mu­ni­ty to deliv­er the entire space val­ue chain — enabling the design, man­u­fac­ture, launch and mis­sion con­trol of New­Space capa­bil­i­ties.”

Alau­da has already proven its tech­no­log­i­cal and com­mer­cial approach through the cre­ation of the world’s full-scale first elec­tric fly­ing rac­ing cars. These took part in his­toric first test flights in the deserts that sur­round the firm’s cur­rent HQ in Ade­laide. South Aus­tralia has proven the per­fect test­ing ground for a sport that is devel­op­ing the fun­da­men­tal dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture that will under­pin the elec­tric fly­ing car mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion.  

These endeav­ours have attract­ed a glob­al pool of top tier motor­sport spon­sors and tech­ni­cal part­ners. This includes Australia’s lead­ing telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny, Tel­stra and Tel­stra Pur­ple, Australia’s largest owned tech­nol­o­gy ser­vices busi­ness.

Togeth­er Alau­da and Tel­stra are pio­neer­ing the devel­op­ment of 5G tech­nolo­gies to aug­ment the vehi­cle-to-vehi­cle (V2V) com­mu­ni­ca­tions that will be vital to both fly­ing car rac­ing as a sport but also wider pas­sen­ger and autonomous deliv­ery appli­ca­tions. 

And since join­ing forces in the sum­mer of 2021 IWC Schaffhausen and Alau­da have engaged in an engi­neer­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing knowl­edge-share informed by a shared phi­los­o­phy to realise bold and world-chang­ing vision with the world’s most advanced mate­ri­als, design philoso­phies and man­u­fac­tur­ing tech­niques.  

Alau­da has moved rapid­ly from design through pro­to­type to full-scale func­tion­ing devel­op­ment vehi­cles. The com­pa­ny is now enter­ing full pro­duc­tion ahead of first races in 2022, with teams from around the world tak­ing deliv­ery of vehi­cles that rep­re­sent the very first of their kind in the world.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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