Eve Urban Air Mobility is the first company to graduate from the Embraer X market accelerator programme.
In the last few months alone, Eve has announced a string of partnerships as the eVTOL moves towards take off – a little over five years since the launch of Embraer X. Eve UAM and infrastructure provider Skyports Pte Ltd announced a partnership that will support the development of a new Concept of Operations for Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), including UAM for the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau last month, plus forward orders from Aviair and HeliSpirit in Western Australia and Microflite in Melbourne.
David Rottblatt, Aerospace Executive at Eve will be preparing a keynote session on Preparing the skies for future urban flight on the first day of the Global Urban Advanced Air Summit at Farnborough tomorrow (March 2). FINN caught up with Eve CEO André Stein at the Dubai Airshow 2021 to talk about how urban air mobility would have a transformative effect on transportation.
Moving fast within the UAM space
Stein said the brand – launched just last October -had experienced a rapid take off alongside other projects in the UAM space. He explained why Eve has been launched under a separate name from its parent
company: “The point is to create and join the best of both cultures. To be a startup with the backing of a massive aerospace company that knows a lot about how to bring solutions to the market [when it comes to aerospace] but at the same time have the focus and agility of a startup and that’s why it was decided to create a separate entity that has all the backing from the main company but can really focus and move fast when it comes to urban air mobility.”
“Using new solutions to disrupt the market on entry level”
Stein added that there were still big hurdles to overcome – mainly around “finding the right solutions, the right technology and the right business model.” He explained: “When you look at aviation and you look at about things like electrical mobility, it’s not ready yet to create aircraft that could fly thousands of kilometres or carry hundreds of people but it’s about right for you to create a solution which will not go that far and carry a few people at a time so that’s the very concept of disruptive innovation using technology using new solutions to disrupt the market on the entry level … and that’s what we are doing.”
Stein said sustainability and emissions reductions would be built into the whole concept of Eve. He explained: “It is a completely new market and needs to be born in a very sustainable way. That’s one of our strongest pillars – to be sustainable – and starting with 100 per cent electrical aircraft it’s a great way to start and assure zero emissions. But that’s not enough. You need to look at the whole lifecycle of our product service from manufacturing the aircraft to disposal of the battery to where the energy is coming from, so we are looking at all that to assure we have not only innovative solution but also that its very, very sustainable.”
