Flying Car Showrooms Make Perfect Sense

A per­son­al fly­ing car that also cov­ers the “dri­ve and fly” eVTOL indus­try needs to be mar­ket­ed to a gen­er­al pub­lic who for now, remain unaware of the rapid devel­op­ments occur­ring in this indus­try. 

Giv­en half the world’s pop­u­la­tion (4 bil­lion peo­ple) may be watch­ing the Paris Olympic Games in less than a year’s time, see­ing for the first time on TV or some oth­er visu­al device, a Voloc­i­ty eVTOL fly­ing over­head will not only amaze, but even shock some. How many peo­ple do you know out­side of the indus­try who are aware of this impend­ing green avi­a­tion rev­o­lu­tion?

There­fore, cre­at­ing show­rooms in cities and large towns makes per­fect sense. Not only will they become impor­tant edu­ca­tion­al facil­i­ties to help the pub­lic grasp and come to terms with this new trans­port phe­nom­e­non, but also, in the ear­ly days at least, even become a tourist attrac­tion.

Of course, these per­son­al fly­ing vehi­cles are pri­mar­i­ly for the wealthy. A show­room in Berke­ley Square, Lon­don, for exam­ple, is more sen­si­ble than one locat­ed in the UK’s Berke­ley Square, Wigan. When prices even at the cheap­er end of the mar­ket, may start at around USD500,000 for a Dri­ve and Fly vehi­cle, this places the cost along­side a new Rolls-Royce, Fer­rari, Lam­borgh­i­ni or a top end Porsche.

U.S‑based Aeroau­to, found­ed in 2021, is at the fore­front of this show­room rev­o­lu­tion. The com­pa­ny has set the rotors mov­ing with a series of news releas­es in recent months (please see exam­ples below). A plan to con­struct a premis­es at Green­port Inter­na­tion­al Air­port and Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­tre in the city of Emer­ald Isle, Texas, is the lat­est expres­sion of its pio­neer­ing vision. 

Please Read

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The two com­pa­nies have signed a Let­ter of Intent (LOI) to build “a world-class show­room and deal­er­ship facil­i­ty on air­port grounds.” And what makes this project even more for­ward-think­ing, the loca­tion cho­sen is part of a new con­struc­tion tak­ing place, over­seen by Cen­tral Texas Air­port Hold­ings, on a 5,000 acre plot in “one of the world’s most impor­tant and rapid­ly grow­ing tech­nol­o­gy and busi­ness hubs”.

Phase I con­sists of a state-of-the-art Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­tre on 2,605 acres, designed to unique­ly appeal to busi­ness­es flood­ing into the Emer­ald Island Met­ro­pol­i­tan Area. The air­port will have a 10,000-foot run­way with a planned 2.9 mil­lion sq.ft of hangar space; 9 mil­lion sq. ft of data cen­tre space and research and devel­op­ment; office build­ing space much of it with “through the fence” access; and a U.S. Cus­toms Port of Entry. 

There­fore, the bespoke show­room is an impor­tant part of the new con­struc­tion. Just as NEOM is hailed as “the city of the future”, so Green­port is “the air­port of the future”, where Aeroau­to holds a seat at the top table. As those pass­ing through will include pri­vate jet own­ers, who can eas­i­ly afford a per­son­al fly­ing car. The Aeroau­to eVTOL show­room is set to open its doors by 2025. 

And like a top end Lon­don garage, the Aeroau­to Show­room and Deal­er­ship will also house an exclu­sive ser­vice cen­tre, staffed with a team of expert tech­ni­cians, to fix any prob­lems the own­ers may have with their craft. As the release states, “This ded­i­cat­ed main­te­nance hub will ensure that each vehi­cle, whether it’s a cus­tomer’s trea­sured pos­ses­sion or a brand-new dream machine, receives top-tier care and atten­tion.”

Mean­while, the new air­port con­struc­tion aims to employ cut­ting-edge secu­ri­ty sys­tems; a self-con­tained com­mu­ni­ca­tions and pow­er micro-grid inher­ent­ly offer­ing Tier 4 data cen­tres; and all the facil­i­ties required for eVTOLs, drones and, of course, per­son­al fly­ing cars and dri­ve and fly vehi­cles, not with­stand­ing all the much vaunt­ed green cre­den­tials. 

Sean Bor­man, the CEO of Aeroau­to, enthused, “This part­ner­ship marks a piv­otal moment in trans­porta­tion his­to­ry. We’re ecsta­t­ic to team up with Green­port Inter­na­tion­al Air­port to intro­duce eVTOL tech­nol­o­gy to the world. Aeroau­to’s com­mit­ment to cre­at­ing a sus­tain­able and effi­cient urban trans­porta­tion ecosys­tem aligns per­fect­ly with Greenport’s ded­i­ca­tion to inno­va­tion and eco-friend­ly prac­tices.”

Green­port is already renowned for its com­mit­ment to sus­tain­abil­i­ty and cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies. Stephen Car­pen­ter, the Man­ag­ing Direc­tor and CIO com­ment­ed,  “We’re thrilled to be part of this excit­ing endeav­our. Aeroau­to’s exper­tise in eVTOL tech­nol­o­gy, cou­pled with our air­port’s intel­li­gent infra­struc­ture and com­mit­ment to eco-con­scious oper­a­tions, will make Green­port a glob­al hub for Urban Air Mobil­i­ty. This col­lab­o­ra­tion with Aeroau­to aligns per­fect­ly with our vision for the future. Togeth­er, we will cre­ate an atmos­phere where the thrill of flight con­verges with the allure of the lat­est eVTOL won­ders, pro­vid­ing our patrons with an expe­ri­ence like nev­er before!”

So, what will the poten­tial array of future per­son­al fly­ing cars and dri­ve and fly vehi­cles cost?

Below is one poten­tial list. Also, please view the above video to offer oth­er exam­ples. Present prices should be tak­en with a pinch of salt when infla­tion is ris­ing in the West and the sup­ply chain is becom­ing increas­ing­ly prob­lem­at­i­cal. Under­stand­ably, some man­u­fac­tur­ers are reluc­tant to offer prices or offer vague com­par­isons like BlackFly’s ‘Open­er’ being the price of “a top end SUV”. 

Plau­dits to those com­pa­nies who have suf­fi­cient courage to offer a mar­ket price, although even these are ques­tion­able. Will Sam­son Sky’s Switch­blade dri­ve and fly real­ly cost just USD150,000? This seems very cheap when com­pared to its com­peti­tors. Yet, here is the kick­er. It is a kit which the com­pa­ny claims will take 2,000 hours to con­struct. Unless a pro­fes­sion­al engi­neer with expe­ri­ence of build­ing a kit car, for exam­ple, the cost to build it will add sub­stan­tial­ly to the over­all price. Mean­while, will the Swe­den-based Jet­son One actu­al­ly cost just USD100,000, if and when launched? This also seems unre­al­is­tic and too inex­pen­sive com­pared to the com­pe­ti­tion.

For such low­er prices, if real­is­tic, could open the mar­ket up to a wider range of peo­ple, although the down­side may be, the vehi­cle comes in kit form.

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Some Exam­ples: Low to High Prices (D/F = Dri­ve and Fly)

Jet­son One: USD100,000

RYSE Recon: USD150,000

Switch­Blade: USD150,000 (D/F)

Air One: USD150,000+

SkyFly Axe: USD175,000+

Doroni H1: USD195,000

Xpeng Voy­ager X2: USD236,00 (Autonomous)

Alef Aero­nau­tics: USD300,000 (D/F)

Hexa Lift: USD495,000

Aska A5: USD789,000 (D/F)

Air­Car: USD1 mil­lion (D/F)

EHang 216: USD1.3 mil­lion (Autonomous)

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As a grow­ing array of per­son­al fly­ing vehi­cles appear on the mar­ket, so the show­room range increas­es, where res­i­dents of Emer­ald Island and vis­i­tors alike will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to wit­ness the future first­hand, explor­ing an array of eVTOL mod­els, while learn­ing about their poten­tial appli­ca­tions in a city of the future. 

Under­stand­ably, crit­ics will point out a major flaw to Aeroauto’s vision. That lit­tle mat­ter of the FAA, for exam­ple, giv­ing full cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and go-ahead to fly these vehi­cles. Some sug­gest, this may not occur for quite some years.

Jet­son One — Poten­tial­ly The Cheap­est Per­son­al Fly­ing Vehi­cle On The Mar­ket (Cred­it: Jet­son)

Yet, there already exists a mar­ket which takes out the most tricky aspect of this cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Own­ers of pri­vate­ly owned land and the abil­i­ty to fly over it with­out the con­cerns of inter­ac­tion with oth­ers. Farm­ers, for exam­ple, may see a fly­ing car as an ide­al replace­ment for a trac­tor, a Jeep, a quad bike, or 4x4 Land Rover, to trav­el over large acreage to check on crops and live­stock. All present wheeled-trans­porta­tion can churn up land and increase mud lev­els, while a fly­ing vehi­cle leaves few marks in the frag­ile soil. It is also a lot faster from point A to B.

If not farm­ers, wealthy peo­ple can own large tracts of pri­vate land. A fly­ing vehi­cle becomes the lat­est play­thing to show off to fam­i­ly, friends and busi­ness col­leagues. There­fore, it is of no sur­prise there is a long wait­ing list of poten­tial buy­ers, many of whom have already placed large deposits to attain such a vehi­cle when con­struc­tion is com­plete.

The per­son­al fly­ing car mar­ket, in what­ev­er guise, will hap­pen. Show­rooms will be con­struct­ed; and com­pa­nies like Aeroau­to may become suc­cess­ful before they’re swal­lowed up by the indus­try’s “Big Boys.”

PS: Where is the fun of fly­ing an autonomous vehi­cle like an EHang 216 or a Xpeng Voy­ager? This par­tic­u­lar mar­ket seems very dif­fer­ent to the oth­er “per­son­al rac­ers.”

For more infor­ma­tion

www.aeroautosales.com

(Pics: Greenport/Aeroauto)