Hyundai will seek to put the first flying taxis into service at US airports as early as 2025, said the North American CEO of the South Korean giant, José Muñoz. A challenge taken up by other players in the emerging urban air mobility market, including in France.
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South Korea’s automotive industry leader Hyundai Motors Group is working to speed up the completion of its flying taxi project for the US market. An announcement on the matter was made by Hyundai’s North American branch general manager José Muñoz at the 2021 Car of the Future conference, hosted by Reuters news agency. June 14 and 15.
Interviewed by Reuters, Muñoz did not rule out that his company was ready to launch air taxi services at major US airports in 2025, three years earlier than expected.
According to the head of Hyundai in North America, his company has enormous potential in the flying vehicle sector.
“We see this market as a significant growth opportunity,” José Muñoz told Reuters, adding that he was “very confident” in the development of these technologies.
Muñoz also told the agency that Hyundai would like to offer its flying vehicle services not only to transport customers but also commercial deliveries and develop an entire infrastructure around this type of mobility.
Morgan Stanley estimates that the total potential market (TAM, total addressable market) for urban air mobility could reach in 2040 one trillion dollars (approximately 824.5 billion euros) with a subsequent growth up to 9 trillion dollars ( 7.400 billion euros) by 2050.
With Uber and NASA experiments
To manage its urban air mobility division (UAM) with a budget of 1.5 billion dollars (1.2 billion euros), which Hyundai created in 2019, the company has ensured the services of engineer Jaiwon Shin, who had worked for 30 years for the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), reports Reuters.
Thus, the South Korean industrial colossus has also decided to establish a partnership with Uber.
The result of this cooperation: a Hyundai S-A1a air taxi concept, which was unveiled to the general public in 2020 at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. It is a prototype electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft with a cruising speed of 290 km / h at an altitude of between 300 and 600 m and capable of traveling up to 100 km. First to be driven, the Hyundai S-A1a has four seats for the passengers.
“Our vision of urban air mobility will revolutionize the concept of urban transport. We believe that urban air mobility will energize urban communities and allow populations to gain in quality of life. We are convinced that Uber Elevate is the ideal partner to make this innovative product available to as many people as possible, ”said Hyundai UAM Head of Division Jaiwon Shin.
Less optimistic competitors
Apart from Hyundai, the Car of the Future 2021 conference brought together other major players in the flying vehicle sector, including General Motors (GM), Toyota Motor Corp, Daimler AG and Geely, all of the companies developing their own projects in the field. , indicates the Reuters agency.
GM, the largest automobile company in the United States, presented its concept of the flying Cadillac last January, Reuters said.
GM’s Global Innovation Team vice president Pamela Fletcher was not as optimistic about air taxi commissioning times as the head of her South Korean competitor.
“I think it’s a long way. 2030 is probably a real commercial inflection point, ”she said during the event. “A lot of work will have to be done on the regulatory front as well as on the [du développement, ndlr] current technologies ”, according to the representative of GM.
Air taxi for the Paris Olympics?
France has not remained on the sidelines when it comes to the exploration of airspace in order to improve the mobility of Europeans.
The ADP group (formerly Aéroports de Paris), the Île-de-France region and the Autonomous Paris Transport Authority (RATP) in partnership with the German manufacturer Volocopter announced last September the establishment of an air mobility sector. urban, with in the viewfinder, the Olympic Games 2024 in Paris.
“The unprecedented crisis in air transport has led in recent months to orient the recovery efforts towards the environmental transition of the sector: the emergence of carbon-free aviation. This new objective constitutes a true industrial revolution which involves the whole of the aeronautical sector ”, underlined ADP in a press release.
With the support of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the Eurocontrol organization, the ADP group plans to test a prototype electric flying taxi, VoloCity, designed by Volocopter at Pontoise aerodrome this summer.
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