Vertical Aerospace Launches Battery Pilot Production Line for its Valo eVTOL Aircraft

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has announced its bat­tery pilot pro­duc­tion line is now oper­a­tional at its Ver­ti­cal Ener­gy Cen­tre (VEC).

The 15,000 sq ft site opened in 2023 and has pro­duced the bat­tery sys­tems used in the company’s pilot­ed flight test­ing since 2024. These pro­pri­etary bat­ter­ies have demon­strat­ed indus­try-lead­ing per­for­mance, deliv­er­ing up to 1.4 MW of peak pow­er dur­ing flight test­ing.

The facil­i­ty has now been upgrad­ed with auto­mat­ed, aero­space-grade man­u­fac­tur­ing process­es designed to sup­port cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and pro­duc­tion, improv­ing effi­cien­cy, con­sis­ten­cy, and bat­tery per­for­mance.

Ver­ti­cal will use the pilot line to test and build the final bat­tery packs for its sev­en Valo cer­ti­fi­ca­tion air­craft which will be used to take the air­craft through the final stages of its cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gramme with the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA) and the Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA), while also pro­vid­ing capac­i­ty for the first phase of com­mer­cial pro­duc­tion fol­low­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, tar­get­ed for 2028.

Stu­art Simp­son, CEO of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, said: “Bring­ing our auto­mat­ed bat­tery pro­duc­tion line online is a defin­ing step in our jour­ney toward cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion. We are not only devel­op­ing a world-class air­craft — we are build­ing the indus­tri­al capa­bil­i­ty required to pro­duce it.

“Vertical’s phased approach aligns man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ty with its cer­ti­fi­ca­tion roadmap and ear­ly com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion strat­e­gy. By invest­ing ear­ly in aero­space-grade bat­tery man­u­fac­tur­ing, we are reduc­ing inte­gra­tion risk, strength­en­ing sup­ply chain con­trol and prepar­ing for com­mer­cial ser­vice.”

Indus­tri­al capac­i­ty sup­port­ing com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion 

Vertical’s pro­pri­etary bat­tery sys­tem pow­ers both the elec­tric Valo eVTOL air­craft and the hybrid-elec­tric air­craft pro­gramme. While Ver­ti­cal part­ners with tier-one aero­space sup­pli­ers includ­ing Hon­ey­well, Aci­tur­ri and Syen­sqo across much of the aircraft’s devel­op­ment and assem­bly, the bat­tery sys­tem remains a core in-house tech­nol­o­gy and a key val­ue dri­ver for the busi­ness.

Beyond air­craft sales, bat­ter­ies are expect­ed to gen­er­ate recur­ring rev­enue through­out the air­craft life­cy­cle. Ver­ti­cal expects to sup­ply approx­i­mate­ly 20 bat­tery packs per air­craft over its oper­a­tional life, cre­at­ing long-term pre­dictable rev­enue streams. 

By 2035, Ver­ti­cal expects to have sup­plied up to approx­i­mate­ly 45,000 bat­tery packs across its air­craft fleet.

Expand­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ty 

Along­side the pilot pro­duc­tion line, Ver­ti­cal con­tin­ues to expand its man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ty through the devel­op­ment of Ver­ti­cal Ener­gy Cen­tre 2 (VEC2), its pow­er­train hub.

VEC2, a new 30,000 sq ft facil­i­ty adja­cent to the exist­ing site, is expect­ed to open lat­er this year and will triple bat­tery pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty. By 2027, Ver­ti­cal expects to have invest­ed £6.4 mil­lion / $8.5 mil­lion across the VEC and VEC2 facil­i­ties.

Grow­ing UK Aero­space Capa­bil­i­ty

Ver­ti­cal con­tin­ues to expand its foot­print in the South West of Eng­land, where the com­pa­ny cur­rent­ly employs approx­i­mate­ly 450 peo­ple. It expects to announce the loca­tion of its full-rate pro­duc­tion and bat­tery facil­i­ties, with loca­tions in the UK and fur­ther afield under con­sid­er­a­tion and a final deci­sion expect­ed lat­er this year, ready to meet Vertical’s man­u­fac­tur­ing ramp up.

As pro­duc­tion scales, Ver­ti­cal expects the num­ber of high­ly skilled jobs asso­ci­at­ed with its man­u­fac­tur­ing ecosys­tem to rise to at least 2,220 by 2035.