Brazil: Welcome Micaelis to UAM Industry

Yet anoth­er com­pa­ny has joined the emerg­ing glob­al Urban Air Mobil­i­ty (UAM) move­ment and this time from Brazil, reports a press release. Called Micaelis, it was found­ed ear­li­er this year by those with expe­ri­ence of the heli­copter indus­try, after con­duct­ing “a com­pre­hen­sive review and mar­ket poten­tial of UAM.” 

Many believe eVTOLs will replace a large part of the present heli­copter mar­ket, so it is of no sur­prise to wel­come Micaelis. As with so many new busi­ness­es, its ambi­tion is proud, stat­ing the aims on its web­site “to be the leader of AAM in Latin Amer­i­ca” and to offer “bet­ter mobil­i­ty and bring Latin Amer­i­ca to an eco-friend­ly future.”

Vin­cent Kief­fer, CEO of Micaelis, com­ment­ed, “Micaelis stands as a pio­neer­ing force in this dynam­ic new mar­ket, deeply root­ed in a tra­di­tion of embrac­ing ground­break­ing inno­va­tion. Along­side strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tions with lead­ing inter­na­tion­al play­ers, we have posi­tioned our­selves at the fore­front of this evolv­ing land­scape.”

He con­tin­ued, “These part­ner­ships will intro­duce cut­ting-edge prod­ucts and ser­vices to the Brazil­ian mar­ket in 2024, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in our jour­ney. As we eager­ly await the industry’s first cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, major play­ers are dili­gent­ly work­ing toward achiev­ing crit­i­cal type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion mile­stones, which will undoubt­ed­ly have a pro­found impact on secur­ing the nec­es­sary fund­ing for fur­ther advance­ments.”

Brazil, poten­tial­ly, is a major eVTOL mar­ket due to its seri­ous city traf­fic con­ges­tion. São Paulo being a typ­i­cal exam­ple with over 11.5 mil­lion inhab­i­tants. While the city has been described as hav­ing “the largest heli­copter fleet in the world”, air taxis could pro­vide an alter­na­tive method of green trans­port while trans­form­ing, in the ear­ly stages, the present heli­ports to ver­ti­ports. 

Graph­ic Image of Eve’s Pro­posed Brazil­ian eVTOL Man­u­fac­tur­ing Fac­to­ry (Cred­it: Eve)

Already, Eve Air Mobil­i­ty has a major foot in the Brazil­ian door. The com­pa­ny has received orders for 2,850 eVTOLs, worth around USD1.5bn from 28 clients in var­i­ous coun­tries includ­ing heli­copter oper­a­tors, air­lines and flight-shar­ing plat­forms. 

Eve decid­ed recent­ly to con­struct its first man­u­fac­tur­ing plant in Taubaté, about 87 miles from Brazil’s eco­nom­ic cap­i­tal for pro­duc­ing eVTOLs. The aim is to build the air­craft in prepa­ra­tion for com­mer­cial ser­vice in 2026.

Fran­cis­co Gomes Neto, Pres­i­dent of Embraer, Eve’s par­ent com­pa­ny, said in a state­ment, “We believe in the enor­mous poten­tial of the glob­al Urban Air Mobil­i­ty mar­ket and we rein­force our com­mit­ment to Eve as one of the major play­ers in this indus­try”.

At present, it is unclear exact­ly what Micaelis’ inten­tions are. Will it be to con­struct ver­ti­ports, ser­vic­ing eVTOLs and drones or even cre­ate its own air­craft? At present, its web­site sug­gests the firm is, or will be, dis­trib­ut­ing EHang’s 216 AAVs in Brazil. There is also a sis­ter com­pa­ny called Mobirus Ver­ti­ports. It is also unclear whether any are under con­struc­tion or poten­tial nego­ti­a­tions have been finalised.

Apart from Kief­fer, who is described on the web­site as “a sea­soned aero­space exec­u­tive with a proven track record…” there is Rober­to Marins, the co-CEO of Micaelis. The site says he is a mechan­i­cal engi­neer with exten­sive expe­ri­ence in man­u­fac­tur­ing and sup­ply­ing steel cans for the food mar­ket as well as a CEO of a com­pa­ny ded­i­cat­ed to build­ing com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties. So where is the UAM link? Marins is also a pri­vate heli­copter pilot.

As with all new UAM-relat­ed com­pa­nies, amidst all the ini­tial web­site blus­ter, whether this one will be suc­cess­ful is anyone’s guess. We wish them well. 

For more infor­ma­tion

https://micaelis.com/

(Top image: Micaelis)