Aerial Mobility Political Support Continues to Grow, Globally

Aerial mobility has permeated global political spheres over the last 5 years, and is continuing to make inroads in various political theatres that are all interested in gaining access to the benefits, both personal and communal, of on-demand electric transportation for personal, EMS, logistics, and defense purposes.

The upcoming Paris Olympics are a perfect example: France is home to electric aircraft designer and manufacture Eviation, who’s Alice prototype continues to progress through flight testing and comes closer to certification and operation as a short to medium haul regional airliner with support from the EU and EASA.

In the states, a variety of organizations, such as the FAA, various state departments of transportation, and a multitude of private public partnerships are working to advance aerial mobility, leveraging never-before realized levels of investments from the tech landscape and from SPAC’s yearning to get in early and be the deciding investor in the space.

In Asia, eVTOL maker EHang is nearing certification for their 216 AAV in China, with support from the CAAC. EHang has already demonstrated a number of use cases for their family of aircraft – including firefighting applications, EMS, and on-demand aerial mobility – which have rapidly advanced to maturity.

In Singapore, German eVTOL maker Volocopter has conducted a number of demonstration flights, along with demonstrations of a Skyportz eVTOL landing pad. In Sydney, electric seaplanes are on the horizon after Vancouver, BC based Harbour Air successfully conducted a test flight of an electric DHC-2 Beaver floatplane.

While the myriad of countries outlined above represent a multifaceted regulatory environment, the consistent aspect is reasoned and developed progression towards deployment of advanced electric aerial mobility aircraft. While there is still substantial work yet to be done on the road towards these designs achieving certification, the landscape of electric aircraft and transportation looks significantly different (and improved) than it was 5 years ago.

Why it’s important: Increased presence of aerial mobility aircraft globally has spurned development of stronger political backing for advanced mobility initiatives. Further, the arena of which these developments are taking place is so vast that angel investors and product evangelists are now being replaced by the wider audience of those seeking common understanding of the next generation of mobility technology.