Honda Latest Automaker to Pursue e/VTOL Dream

The alliance between the auto­mo­tive indus­try and the grow­ing e/VTOL mar­ket con­tin­ues as Hon­da becomes the lat­est car man­u­fac­tur­er to embrace Urban Air Mobil­i­ty, reports forbes.com.

The Forbes arti­cle writ­ten by Dale Buss says, “Already com­pet­ing with one anoth­er in tech­no­log­i­cal rev­o­lu­tions on the ground in EVs, hydro­gen pow­er and dri­ver­less vehi­cles, automak­ers also have begun jock­ey­ing with one anoth­er for ear­ly posi­tions in a new are­na: the skies.”

evtolinsights.com cov­ers an increas­ing num­ber of sto­ries about car man­u­fac­tur­ers col­lab­o­rat­ing with eVTOL com­pa­nies. Please read this arti­cle below. The likes of Joby and Toy­ota; Archer and Stel­lan­tis; Super­nal and Hyundai being typ­i­cal exam­ples.

Top Six: eVTOL Start-Ups and Automak­ers are Expe­di­tious­ly Col­lab­o­rat­ing Like Nev­er Before

A pri­ma­ry dif­fer­ence with Hon­da is the com­pa­ny has cre­at­ed its own hybrid-pow­ered VTOL rather than pig­gy­back­ing on an already exist­ing air­craft. While only in CGI form, Hon­da is already adver­tis­ing the con­cept via U.S TV adver­tise­ments that por­tray the com­pa­ny advanc­ing trans­porta­tion tech­nol­o­gy, as well as offer­ing a recent pro­jec­tion from a rolling plat­form on its Rose Parade float on New Year’s Day in Pasade­na, Cal­i­for­nia, an ide­al set­ting for this con­cept. Hon­da has long spon­sored the event.

Sean Moore, Head of Aero­space and Defence at Capgem­i­ni Amer­i­c­as Con­sul­tants, explained, “The imme­di­ate impact poten­tial is immense. Imag­ine a sky full of non-pol­lut­ing eVTOLs with low­er oper­at­ing costs than heli­copters, swift­ly trans­port­ing com­muters by bypass­ing the con­ges­tion across [New York City’s] East Riv­er and deliv­er­ing you to the air­port before your cof­fee gets cold.”

Mor­gan Stan­ley pre­dicts Urban Air Mobil­i­ty could gen­er­ate over USD1.5 tril­lion by 2040. There­fore, it is of no sur­prise automak­ers want a piece of the action.

Yet, Hon­da is inter­est­ed in a gas tur­bine-elec­tric motor hybrid approach and car­bon fuse­lage rather than pure elec­tric for as the com­pa­ny points out, this offers the air­craft a far greater range of more than 400 kilo­me­tres, or four times fur­ther than eVTOLs.

Even so, Hon­da admits its CGI con­cept remains a con­cept, for now. Hiro­hide Azu­ma, Honda’s Head of eVTOL devel­op­ment, com­ment­ed, “It has poten­tial, but it is a long-term project. It’s not some­thing you’re going to see imme­di­ate­ly.”

Hiro­hide Azu­ma

Yet, Hon­da has the expe­ri­ence to take the CGI con­cept and trans­form it into real­i­ty. The com­pa­ny cites its exten­sive expe­ri­ence with the high­ly demand­ing elec­tri­cal-sys­tem require­ments of For­mu­la 1 auto rac­ing and, of course, its sev­er­al years of Hon­da Jets that today are some of the most high­ly regard­ed air­craft in pri­vate avi­a­tion. Azu­ma adds, “We’ll be using all of our com­bined expe­ri­ence.”

Matheu Parr, cus­tomer direc­tor of Rolls-Royce Elec­tri­cal, which is devel­op­ing pow­er­plants for eVTOLs, remarked, “Auto com­pa­nies come in with a past decade of expe­ri­ence in elec­tri­fy­ing plat­forms and invest­ing in plat­forms and infra­struc­ture to deliv­er them. Their skill sets are com­ple­men­tary.”

Please Read

https://global.honda/innovation/advanced-technology/evtol1.html

(News Source: www.forbes.com)

(Top image: Hon­da)