Sarla Aviation “to Launch Electric Air Taxi Services in Mumbai and Delhi”

Sar­la Avi­a­tion is one of sev­er­al eVTOL start-ups with a strong eye across India. On one hand, the coun­try is the per­fect venue for the indus­try with its appalling city con­ges­tion along­side a vast pop­u­la­tion. The one major down­side: How many Indi­ans could afford to reg­u­lar­ly fly by air taxi?

This hasn’t stopped com­pa­ny Founder and CEO, Adri­an Schmidt, along­side his 47 enthu­si­as­tic team, to dream of the poten­tial await­ing rich­es by “rev­o­lu­tion­is­ing trans­porta­tion in India.” 

Accord­ing to India’s financialexpress.com (FE), Schmidt now plans to launch Sarla’s eVTOL air­craft in Mum­bai and Del­hi, after an ini­tial intro­duc­tion in Ben­galu­ru. The com­pa­ny is gun­ning for a nation­wide ser­vice by 2028. Schmidt spoke to the nation­al news­pa­per at the Start­up Mahakumbh event held at Bharat Man­da­pam, New Del­hi, which ran from April 3rd to 5th.

https://startupmahakumbh.org

Mean­while, Sar­la unveiled its pro­to­type air taxi at the Jan­u­ary Bharat Mobil­i­ty Glob­al Expo. The eVTOL is designed to car­ry up to six pas­sen­gers on 20–30 km trips with speeds reach­ing 250 kmph.

Please Watch Video

Adri­an Schmidt inter­view at the Bharat Mobil­i­ty Glob­al Expo in Jan­u­ary

The prob­lem being, it is so easy to dream, dreams which the media lap up as can­non fod­der for its eter­nal crav­ing for news. The Founder is often viewed as a vision­ary, an ambi­tious pio­neer, but often real­i­ty may take a nasty turn as the eVTOL indus­try recent­ly expe­ri­enced with Lil­i­um. But for now, Sar­la is tak­ing over India.

The company’s ambi­tion is backed by a steady flow of devel­op­ment news.

Recent­ly, Sar­la signed a part­ner­ship with Ben­galu­ru Inter­na­tion­al Air­port to launch its air taxis at Kem­pe­gow­da Inter­na­tion­al Air­port. The pro­posed route from the air­port to Bengaluru’s Elec­tron­ics City would take approx­i­mate­ly 19 min­utes, com­pared to the 152 min­utes required by road. Mum­bai and Del­hi oper­a­tions would fol­low around two months after the Ben­galu­ru ser­vice becomes oper­a­tional.

There is some finan­cial back­ing, an ini­tial USD10 mil­lion from a Series A fund­ing round led by Accel.  This allows Sar­la to progress to the next step of many ahead. For now, at least, Schmidt says the com­pa­ny is cur­rent­ly “well-cap­i­talised” and “not in des­per­ate need to raise any­time soon.”

He also told the FE that the company’s core aim is to be a man­u­fac­tur­ing firm and not just a ser­vice com­pa­ny, there­fore open to sup­ply­ing its elec­tric air­craft to oth­er com­pa­nies. 

Schmidt also has a human­i­tar­i­an nature, express­ing plans to launch a free air ambu­lance ser­vice across India.

India: Sar­la Avi­a­tion, Ben­galu­ru Col­lab­o­rate for “City to Air­port Via eVTOL in 5 Min­utes!” 

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.sarla-aviation.com

News Source: www.financialexpress.com

(Images: Sar­la Avi­a­tion)

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