Eve Air Mobility and AirX Inc. Sign Letter of Intent for up to 50 eVTOL aircraft, service support and Urban ATM software

Eve Air Mobil­i­ty has signed a let­ter of intent with AirX Inc., Japan’s largest pub­lic heli­copter air char­ter ser­vice, for up to 10 firm and up to 40 option­al eVTOL air­craft.

The Asia-Pacif­ic region is an impor­tant mar­ket for Eve, with the com­pa­ny con­tin­u­ing to build diverse rela­tion­ships and work with its cus­tomers and poten­tial cus­tomers to bring a new mode of trans­porta­tion to help ease traf­fic con­ges­tion in the region.

In addi­tion to Japan, Eve is already work­ing close­ly with cus­tomers and oper­a­tors in Aus­tralia, India and South Korea among oth­er loca­tions. As the com­pa­ny works with local part­ners, its goal is to col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly build UAM ecosys­tems with its oper­at­ing part­ners in each of the intend­ed launch com­mu­ni­ties and is shar­ing infor­ma­tion insights as dis­cus­sions con­tin­ue.

Johann Bor­dais, CEO of Eve, said: “We appre­ci­ate AirX’s trust and con­fi­dence in Eve by not only pur­chas­ing our eVTOL air­craft, but ser­vices and oper­a­tions solu­tions and our Vec­tor — the urban air traf­fic man­age­ment soft­ware.

“Japan has been pro­gres­sive in their approach and inter­est in eVTOL oper­a­tions and we look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to expand our rela­tion­ships and as we sup­port Japan’s urban air mobil­i­ty objec­tives going for­ward.”

AirX is a pio­neer of advanced air mobil­i­ty in Japan and a dig­i­tal plat­form com­pa­ny offer­ing a total solu­tion of char­ter ser­vices to the Japan­ese pub­lic via AIROS Skyview. AirX announced the launch of the Greater Tokyo Area’s first eVTOL test field, the UAM Cen­tre.

This inno­v­a­tive ini­tia­tive builds on AirX’s rich his­to­ry of offer­ing unique aer­i­al expe­ri­ences through AIROS Skyview since 2015, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in the company’s jour­ney towards sus­tain­able and acces­si­ble urban air mobil­i­ty (UAM). The UAM Cen­tre is set to rev­o­lu­tionise air trav­el in the Tokyo met­ro­pol­i­tan area, show­cas­ing the company’s com­mit­ment to inno­va­tion and the future of trans­porta­tion.

Kiwa­mu Tezu­ka, CEO of AirX Inc., said: “We are deeply impressed not only by EVE’s tech­no­log­i­cal capa­bil­i­ties, but also by their com­mit­ment to build­ing an ecosys­tem. Our aim is to rev­o­lu­tion­ize the cur­rent indus­try, mak­ing trans­port ser­vices use­ful and afford­able for every­one.

“By inte­grat­ing our knowl­edge, expe­ri­ences, and exist­ing busi­ness plat­form with EVE’s com­pre­hen­sive solu­tions, we hope to over­come trans­porta­tion lim­i­ta­tions by advanc­ing eVTOL oper­a­tions in Japan.”

Eve’s eVTOL air­craft uti­lizes a lift+cruise con­fig­u­ra­tion with eight ded­i­cat­ed pro­pellers for ver­ti­cal flight and fixed wings to fly on cruise, with no change in the posi­tion of these com­po­nents dur­ing flight.

The lat­est con­cept includes an elec­tric push­er pow­ered by dual elec­tric motors that pro­vide propul­sion redun­dan­cy with the goal of ensur­ing the high­est lev­els of per­for­mance and safe­ty. While offer­ing numer­ous advan­tages includ­ing low­er cost of oper­a­tion, few­er parts, opti­mised struc­tures and sys­tems, it has been devel­oped to offer effi­cient thrust with low sound.

Last year, the com­pa­ny announced that its first eVTOL pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty will be locat­ed in the city of Taubaté, in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The com­pa­ny has begun assem­bly of its first full-scale eVTOL pro­to­type which will be fol­lowed by a test cam­paign. Eve has let­ters of intent for near­ly 3,000 eVTOLs and the air­craft is expect­ed to enter into ser­vice in 2026.

Con­cur­rent­ly, Eve con­tin­ues to devel­op a com­pre­hen­sive port­fo­lio of agnos­tic ser­vice and oper­a­tions solu­tions, includ­ing Vec­tor, a unique Urban Air Traf­fic Man­age­ment soft­ware to opti­mize and scale Urban Air Mobil­i­ty oper­a­tions world­wide.