Volocopter completes production setup for electric air taxis

Volo­copter yes­ter­day announced that it would open a pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty in Bruch­sal with a new hangar to host its final assem­bly line and an air­field to con­duct flight tests, as well as qual­i­ty checks.

Com­pa­ny-owned pro­duc­tion sites will man­u­fac­ture the first EASA-cer­ti­fied elec­tric air taxis and ramp up into full oper­a­tion in April, offer­ing com­mer­cial ser­vices start­ing next year.

Volocopter’s pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties have the capac­i­ty and reg­u­la­to­ry approval to assem­ble 50+ VoloC­i­ty air­craft each year. Since 2021, the com­pa­ny has held an approval as a pro­duc­tion organ­i­sa­tion in com­pli­ance with EASA reg­u­la­tion.

This cer­ti­fi­ca­tion cov­ers the entire VoloC­i­ty pro­duc­tion process and includes the man­u­fac­tur­ing of car­bon fiber parts, all aspects of the elec­tric propul­sion unit, final assem­bly with deck­ing of the propul­sion sys­tem and fuse­lage, and exten­sive end-of-line flight tests.

The open­ing cer­e­mo­ny fea­tured a crewed flight of the Volo­copter 2X with key guests that includ­ed Dr Volk­er Wiss­ing, Fed­er­al Min­is­ter of Dig­i­tal Affairs and Trans­port; Win­fried Kretschmann, Min­is­ter of the State for Baden-Würt­tem­berg; Dr Anna Christ­mann, Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Coor­di­na­tor for Ger­man Aero­space Pol­i­cy; and upward of 70 busi­ness and polit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Volo­copter CEO Dirk Hoke said: “This region is known for trans­form­ing mobil­i­ty, like the bicy­cle, the car, and soon Volo­copter too. Elec­tric air taxi tech­nol­o­gy made in Ger­many will make the world a more sus­tain­able place.”

Volo­copter pro­gram man­ag­er Andreas Fehring added: “The VoloC­i­ty has com­plet­ed its crit­i­cal design review and it is not easy to set up a pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty for an entire­ly new type of air­craft, but my team has done a phe­nom­e­nal job.”

Fed­er­al Min­is­ter of Trans­port Dr Volk­er Wiss­ing con­tin­ued: “Ger­many is already a world leader in the devel­op­ment of air taxis, thanks in part to Volocopter’s great pio­neer­ing spir­it.

“We are work­ing with key indus­try play­ers on a strat­e­gy for air taxi oper­a­tions here in Ger­many, in which all tech­ni­cal and legal issues are addressed with­out delay. We are doing this so that the first drones car­ry­ing peo­ple and goods can take off soon.”

Volo­copter claims it is the first and only eVTOL com­pa­ny to receive Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approval (DOA) from the Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA), hav­ing com­mit­ted to launch­ing com­mer­cial air taxi ser­vices in cities like Sin­ga­pore, Rome, Sau­di Arabia’s NEOM, and Paris as ear­ly as 2024.

Last month, Volo­copter and SITA, the world’s lead­ing IT provider to the air trans­port indus­try, entered a part­ner­ship with SITA as Volocopter’s pre­ferred dig­i­tal and IT sys­tems part­ner for ver­ti­ports.

Volo­copter part­ners with SITA on IT infra­struc­ture for ver­ti­ports