Aviation
General /
Brazil
eVTOL
The price of Embraer's "flying cars" could exceed US$ 500 thousand
Reprodução/Embraer
Gabriela Ramos
6/16/2021
Embraer is currently developing the eVTOL (Electric Take-off and Landing Vehicle) project, the “flying car”. There has been discussion about the price of vehicles, as Paulo Cesar de Souza e Silva, the company's president at the time of the project's creation, stated that, to be viable, each eVTOL unit will have to cost between US$ 500 and $600 thousand.
The aim is for the vehicle to be used as an air taxi and to be a popular means of transport. However, for this, the price of eVTOL cannot exceed US$ 600,000, says Silva. “Today, Embraer does not have the resources to make investments on its own as it had in the past,” he says.
According to Silva, the cost of executing the project should total approximately US$300 million. However, he also claims that, given the crisis that the company – and the entire airline industry – is facing due to the pandemic, Embraer will have difficulties to bear this cost alone.
The former president believes that Embraer has the potential to stand out in this sector in the future, as large companies do not seem to be focusing on flying cars, while startups will likely have difficulties in certifying their aircraft.
According to him, the forecast for the inauguration of eVTOL will be between 2025 and 2026, but the company will still face challenges along the way. One of them will be the payment of everyone involved in the project, from the manufacturers to the owners of the properties that will receive the vehicles. However, to make this cost cheaper, the vehicle will have to work autonomously, which, contradictorily, will make the operation more expensive.
The project began to be developed in 2017 and so far has sold units to companies such as Halo and Helisul Aviation, in addition to the partnership with Uber.
The eVTOLs, despite the nickname “flying car”, are actually a kind of electric helicopter, but it is able to land and take off more smoothly due to its type of propeller. Eve, an urban mobility company owned by Embraer, has dedicated efforts to putting in place an air taxi infrastructure in Brazil through the eVTOLs, which are being tested in a simulator.
In addition, Embraer recently announced a possible merger of Eve with Zanite Acquisition, which also appreciated its shares on the stock exchange and also gave Eve a market cap of approximately US$2.5 billion. Check out more information about the merger at the link below.
Sacha Verheij/Unsplash
Hyperlinks:
https://theaviationwatch202101...
...
...
Gabriela Ramos
Gabriela is the latest addition to the editorial team of our website, having provided us with her solid background in editing, publishing and photography, and her interest and training in aviation history and historiography. His good taste and common sense and great cleverness and sagacity in the selection of themes and materials greatly enriched our vocabulary and narrative style. Gabriela brought unusual predicates and came to stay, helping to point the way of success of our portal.
   
|