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“Say Hi to Linker, a 4–6 Seater eVTOL That Makes Quirky Seem Mundane”

We have seen it all before. Those CGI videos on Youtube offer­ing the lat­est wacky-look­ing eVTOL that will nev­er take­off from the imag­i­na­tion. Or a tech­no­log­i­cal impos­si­bil­i­ty that not even Elon Musk can under­stand. So, here is anoth­er… per­haps?

Designed by Joowon Lee as a grad­u­a­tion project dur­ing his time at the Hongik Uni­ver­si­ty in Seoul, South Korea, it is called The Link­er. A 4–6 seater eVTOL which Lee says “will help slash com­mute times and allows an indi­vid­ual to trav­el any­where with­in the city in style.” 

This autonomous eVTOL fea­tures wings on each side with a spa­cious cab­in in the mid­dle. Large win­dows on either side of the cab­in offer occu­pants a stun­ning view of the city as they trav­el through the air, and the eVTOL also fea­tures stowage area for lug­gage and car­go, allow­ing it to work as more than just pub­lic trans­port.

Ok… go on.

Link­er aims at tack­ling the prob­lem of over-urban­i­sa­tion as cities become increas­ing­ly cramped with build­ings and road­ways and unable to accom­mo­date the influx of a grow­ing pop­u­la­tion. The eVTOL has the abil­i­ty to take off and land on the ter­races of build­ings, offer­ing an A‑to‑B trans­port solu­tion that uses the sky rather than adding to the hub­bub of crowd­ed road­ways.

Good prose, but is this actu­al­ly real­is­tic? Take off and land on ter­races of build­ings?

The eVTOL opts for a plane-like con­struc­tion with two mas­sive wings and three adjustable pro­pellers on each one. The six pro­pellers face upwards dur­ing take-off and land­ing and then rotate to face for­ward after the vehi­cle is air­borne, shift­ing from a heli­copter to an air­plane for­mat.

So a sim­i­lar for­mat to oth­er eVTOLs, then?

The Linker’s inte­ri­or pro­pos­es an inter­est­ing shapeshift­ing set­up. The eVTOL can sit either 4 peo­ple in a tra­di­tion­al car/air­plane-style seat­ing arrange­ment, or seat as many as 6 peo­ple in an ellipse fac­ing out­wards. The for­mer arrange­ment would come at a pre­mi­um, while the lat­ter would be more like a pub­lic option, akin to trav­el­ing by bus.

A Uni­ver­si­ty grad­u­a­tion project, to set­ting up a com­pa­ny, to find­ing the huge invest­ment to con­struct and bring to mar­ket? Umm… Allow the graph­ic images to tell the sto­ry. 

(News Source: www.yankodesign.com)

(Images: Joowon Lee)

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