Eve Announces First North American Urban Air Mobility Simulation in Chicago

Eve will con­duct its first North Amer­i­can Urban Air Mobil­i­ty (UAM) sim­u­la­tion using heli­copters pow­ered by Blade Air Mobil­i­ty as a sub­sti­tute for an eVTOL to study oper­a­tions, ground ser­vices, pas­sen­ger jour­neys and eVTOL oper­a­tor needs.

By cre­at­ing more acces­si­ble and faster con­nec­tions to Down­town Chica­go, Eve will con­duct its Chica­go UAM sim­u­la­tion over three weeks, start­ing with ground tests on Sep­tem­ber 12th and pas­sen­ger flights on the 14th.

Fol­low­ing the sim­u­la­tion, the city of Chica­go will gain knowl­edge about the infra­struc­ture and ecosys­tem need­ed to enable the launch and expect­ed long-term growth of UAM in the area.

Eve co-CEO André Stein said: “Sim­u­lat­ing the eVTOL oper­a­tion in Chica­go allows us to study how peo­ple will expe­ri­ence this ser­vice and under­stand the entire ecosys­tem require­ments for our prod­uct and ser­vices, while show­cas­ing the ben­e­fit of Urban Air Mobil­i­ty in one of North America’s most promi­nent and pop­u­lat­ed cities.

”We are wrap­ping up prepa­ra­tions to exe­cute these sim­u­la­tions seam­less­ly and look for­ward to help­ing pre­pare Chica­go for a local zero-emis­sion UAM solu­tion that is qui­et, effi­cient, and sus­tain­able.”

Eve will per­form the ground tests at Ver­ti­port Chica­go, an exist­ing down­town heli­port facil­i­ty, sim­u­lat­ing ser­vices, infra­struc­ture, and equip­ment require­ments for the eVTOL.

Eve vice pres­i­dent of ser­vices and fleet oper­a­tions Luiz Mauad said: “It is essen­tial to under­stand and address the key chal­lenges asso­ci­at­ed with the main pil­lars of the UAM ecosys­tem through these projects involv­ing part­ners and the com­mu­ni­ty.

“Our pro­pos­al brings togeth­er all stake­hold­ers and counts on dif­fer­ent views and feed­back to struc­ture and deliv­er the best solu­tions.”

For this sim­u­la­tion, Eve has formed a con­sor­tium of part­ners, includ­ing Blade, Repub­lic Air­ways, Halo Avi­a­tion, Ver­ti­port Chica­go, Vil­lage of Tin­ley Park, Vil­lage of Schaum­burg, ACCIONA, Sky­West, Inc. and Speed­bird Aero.

A heli­copter repli­cat­ing Eve’s future eVTOL will trans­port pas­sen­gers from the Ver­ti­port Chica­go facil­i­ty to two helistops locat­ed north­west and south­west of Chica­go, the first con­nect­ing Chica­go to Schaum­burg Munic­i­pal Helistop, and the sec­ond to Tin­ley Park Helistop in Illi­nois.

Ear­li­er this month, Eve announced a loss of $11.8 mil­lion for its sec­ond quar­ter earn­ings, the company’s first quar­ter­ly report since going pub­lic in May.

Last month at the Farn­bor­ough Air­show, Eve announced a deal with BAE Sys­tems to order up to 150 eVTOLs with the aim of exam­in­ing the appli­ca­tion for the defence and secu­ri­ty mar­ket.