Mainstream Media “Continues to Highlight eVTOLs as Industry Moves Ever Closer to Take-Off”

If you do not have the Main­stream Media on your side, a major new mar­ket becomes increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to sell to the pub­lic. This has nev­er been a prob­lem for the eVTOL Indus­try. It ticks all the box­es. And why lead­ing glob­al news out­lets like the Dai­ly Mail reg­u­lar­ly fea­ture arti­cles about elec­tric air taxis.

Its lat­est piece pub­lished in The Mail On Sun­day enthus­es about U.S‑based Joby Avi­a­tion and its poten­tial to fly pas­sen­gers around the north­ern areas of the UK includ­ing Der­by, Stoke and Leeds.

With the head­ing,  “Why you could soon catch a lift to Leeds in a fly­ing taxi: US firm looks to roll out air­borne cabs capa­ble of trav­el­ling up to 200mph across the UK”, the media outlet’s Asso­ciate City Edi­tor, John-Paul Ford Rojas, writes, “Now one of the sec­tor’s lead­ing firms is plan­ning routes across parts of Eng­land as it plots a British launch.” 

Rojas then quotes Joby’s Founder and CEO, JoeBen Bevirt, who remarks, “The UK is an incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty not just in the south, but also being able to net­work under­served parts of the coun­try.” Adding, “We want this to be some­thing that’s broad­ly afford­able.” 

These planned routes offer an alter­na­tive for those in the north of Eng­land aban­doned by the deci­sion not to extend the high-speed HS2 rail line beyond Birm­ing­ham.

Joby has mapped out a pos­si­ble net­work across the North that includes Liv­er­pool, Man­ches­ter, Sheffield and Leeds as well as Stoke, Der­by, Not­ting­ham, Hull and York.

A typ­i­cal jour­ney from Leeds to Man­ches­ter Air­port will take 22 min­utes com­pared with 66 min­utes in a car and 92 min­utes by train. A walk-on sin­gle fare at rush hour for the same jour­ney costs UKP36.70. A stan­dard Uber fare would be more than UKP100. Bevirt hopes that flight costs would even­tu­al­ly become sim­i­lar to rail.

The expec­ta­tion for Joby is that pas­sen­gers would arrive for a flight and have a quick check-in at a ver­ti­port before board­ing the taxi. Pas­sen­gers will use an app to book a ride, sim­i­lar to using an Uber.

The arti­cle con­tin­ues, “Qui­et and elec­tric-pow­ered, the air­craft are designed to car­ry small groups of pas­sen­gers on short dis­tances, avoid­ing clogged roads and rail­ways. While called air taxis, they will not oper­ate in the tra­di­tion­al sense of the word by tak­ing pas­sen­gers to whichev­er des­ti­na­tion they choose. Instead, they will fer­ry peo­ple between fixed points, for instance, between city cen­tres like a train or bus.”

As ever, real­i­ty kicks in when the all-impor­tant infra­struc­ture is men­tioned. For while ver­ti­ports are viewed as cheap and easy to install, how­ev­er qui­et the air­craft may be, would the pub­lic want such a struc­ture built close to their homes? And what might the real estate charge in the cen­tre of a major city be, if there is any land avail­able? Ini­tial­ly, the use of exist­ing heli­ports must sure­ly be the answer.

The arti­cle points out, “(eVTOLS) are cheap­er and less noisy than heli­copters, and the charg­ers are sim­i­lar to those used by a Tes­la or oth­er EVs.” While there is no firm launch date for the UK, the coun­try is seen by Joby as a key mar­ket. 

“Fly­ing Taxis will Take to Britain’s Skies by 2028, While Drones to be Used for Emer­gency Ser­vices and Fight­ing Crime,” Says UK Gov­ern­ment

Of course, after the Paris Olympics dis­ap­point­ment where the promise of Voloc­i­ty flights over the City dur­ing the Games turned to dust after local politi­cians vehe­ment­ly denied any oppor­tu­ni­ty, the real­i­ty of eVTOLs fly­ing over Britain must be ques­tioned.

Back in March, The Dai­ly Mail pub­lished a major arti­cle enti­tled “Fly­ing taxis will take to the skies of Britain by 2028 and drones will be used to fight crime, says gov­ern­ment.” May the recent­ly incum­bent Labour par­ty be so keen?

The eVTOL indus­try will hap­pen in the UK, but guess­ing which year ser­vices begin is anoth­er mat­ter. Present­ly, all eyes are on the Mid­dle East to lead the way.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.jobyaviation.com

(News Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html)

(Images: Joby Avi­a­tion)

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