Urban-Air Port and Hyundai’s UAM Division to develop 65 infrastructure hubs for drones and eVTOL aircraft

Urban-Air Port has announced plans with the Urban Air Mobil­i­ty Divi­sion of Hyundai Motor Group to devel­op 65 elec­tric urban-air ports world­wide to meet the grow­ing demand for autonomous air­borne drones and eVTOL air­craft.

The part­ner­ship aims to estab­lish a glob­al net­work of urban-air ports and pro­vide the essen­tial infra­struc­ture to unlock clean urban air mobil­i­ty world­wide. The 65 sites will be built in key loca­tions across the USA, the UK and Europe and Asia Pacif­ic and form a key part of Urban-Air Port’s plan to build 200 sites glob­al­ly in the next five years.

They are also an inte­gral part of Hyundai Motor Group’s vision, which is to pro­vide smart mobil­i­ty solu­tions for the chang­ing world. The Group is devel­op­ing its own eVTOL air­craft and plans to enter ser­vice in 2028.

Ricky Sand­hu, Founder and Exec­u­tive Chair­man of Urban-Air Port^®, said: “The sec­tor is soar­ing and we know that a future with elec­tric fly­ing vehi­cles and drones in cities is going to be a real­i­ty soon. But it can’t hap­pen if we don’t have the infra­struc­ture on the ground and in the air to make it hap­pen.

“Urban-Air Port will change the way we trav­el for­ev­er – unlock­ing clean urban air trans­port for every­one, improv­ing con­nec­tiv­i­ty in con­gest­ed cities, cut­ting pol­lu­tion and boost­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. The deal with the Urban Air Mobil­i­ty Divi­sion of Hyundai Motor Group is a mas­sive step towards our vision of installing hun­dreds of urban-air ports world­wide to main­tain our posi­tion at the fore­front of this sec­tor and sup­port the rapid expan­sion of urban air mobil­i­ty in this decade.”

Invest­ment in the urban air mobil­i­ty indus­try has explod­ed this year, with $4.7 bil­lion USD announced for the devel­op­ment of eVTOL air­craft. How­ev­er, the lack of infra­struc­ture to sup­port these vehi­cles is a major block on mar­ket growth, with experts at NASA say­ing infra­struc­ture con­straints will cre­ate a sig­nif­i­cant bar­ri­er to urban air mobil­i­ty in the near term. Despite this, only three per cent of the invest­ment so far this year ($150m USD) is in the phys­i­cal infra­struc­ture.

Urban-Air Port is sole­ly focused on deploy­ing the infra­struc­ture-tech­nol­o­gy essen­tial for eVTOLs and deliv­ery drones to oper­ate. The world’s first ful­ly oper­a­tional urban-air port – named Air-One – will be unveiled ear­ly next year in Coven­try, UK.

Urban-Air Port’s mod­u­lar hubs are specif­i­cal­ly designed for com­pact envi­ron­ments, sup­port­ing any eVTOL or drone vehi­cle, and with main­te­nance and charg­ing able to take place on-site. The ultra-com­pact off-grid design enables urban-air ports to be locat­ed in dense urban areas and remote loca­tions and can be eas­i­ly moved to alter­na­tive sites, as the air-mobil­i­ty sec­tor devel­ops.

This design also means the sites are ide­al for dis­as­ter emer­gency man­age­ment, such as nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. Urban-air ports can rapid­ly deploy drones and oth­er eVTOL vehi­cles to col­lect and trans­port emer­gency sup­plies, equip­ment and peo­ple where need­ed. Urban-Air Port is designed as an inte­grat­ed hub for all sus­tain­able trans­port, includ­ing drones, eVTOLs, elec­tric vehi­cles bus­es or scoot­ers.

Com­ment­ing on the new agree­ment, Pamela Cohn, Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer and U.S. Gen­er­al Man­ag­er for the Urban Air Mobil­i­ty Divi­sion of Hyundai Motor Group, said: “Urban Air Mobil­i­ty will be inte­gral to how we get from A to B this cen­tu­ry. Hyundai Motor Group has a bold vision for future mobil­i­ty and is com­mit­ted to mak­ing the human and tech­no­log­i­cal invest­ments need­ed to ush­er in a new era of trans­port.

“Urban-Air Port is key to open­ing up safe, afford­able, zero-emis­sion mobil­i­ty, which will take urban air mobil­i­ty from sci­ence fic­tion to tan­gi­ble real­i­ty.”

To sup­port this future, Urban-Air Port today also announces a part­ner­ship with world lead­ing Hydro­gen Fuel Cell pio­neer, AFC Ener­gy PLC, to pro­vide zero emis­sion off-grid pow­er for future sites. The sys­tem will be deployed at Urban-Air Port’s Air One site in Coven­try.

Urban-Air Port is also sup­port­ed by the UK gov­ern­ment via the Future Flight Chal­lenge to devel­op avi­a­tion infra­struc­ture and sys­tems that enable the next gen­er­a­tion of elec­tric and autonomous air vehi­cles. It is also in dis­cus­sions with mul­ti­ple poten­tial part­ners and investors, as part of its Series A fund­ing round which clos­es in Q4 2021.

Min­is­ter for Aero­space, Paul Scul­ly, said: “The gov­ern­ment-backed Urban-Air Port her­alds a new, con­ve­nient and sus­tain­able way to trav­el with­in the UK, improv­ing con­nec­tiv­i­ty between cities, whilst help­ing us to build back green­er.

“The UK is at the cut­ting-edge of new tech­nolo­gies in the pur­suit of a net zero econ­o­my by 2050. Mak­ing sure that the infra­struc­ture exists for these new modes of trans­port is key to mak­ing zero emis­sion urban flight an every­day real­i­ty.”

Gary Cutts, Future Flight Chal­lenge Direc­tor at UKRI, added: “Urban-Air Port will rev­o­lu­tionise cities across the world, mak­ing them more con­nect­ed, clean­er and accel­er­at­ing our green eco­nom­ic recov­ery. This deal, with one of the world’s largest mobil­i­ty com­pa­nies, is a tes­ta­ment to what the Future Flight Chal­lenge fund is all about – sup­port­ing world-lead­ing inno­va­tion to grow glob­al­ly and posi­tion the UK at the fore­front of the green air mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion.”