Flying Car Market

Flying cars, also known as aerial vehicles, are designed to operate on both land as well as air. These can be used in both private and commercial uses thereby overcoming traffic issues and travel time. OEMs have invested significant amounts to develop flying cars. For instance, in March 2022, AeroMobil (Slovakia), a flying car start-up, showcased AM NEXT, a 4-seater flying car which is based on its previous 2-seater prototype, AM 4.0. Due to the minimal available space available in today’s congested urban areas, a dedicated runway space for flying mobility vehicles will not be feasible. Thus, the vertical take-off technology will cater the need for minimal availability of space. The policy makers need to come up with regulations to create a new ecosystem for flying cars in the coming decade. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of US government has released new design guidelines for vertiports in September 2022. The prominent concept of flying cars can also serve the emergency services like ambulance, police, fire brigade services etc. as the commuting time will be drastically reduced.

The global flying car market size is expected to grow from USD 74.2 million in 2022 to USD 920.5 million in 2030, at a CAGR of 37.0%.

Drivers: Growing investments by OEMs and start-ups to create a prosperous flying car ecosystem

Many companies have the vision of deploying flying cars for commercial and personal use. The allure concept of flying cars has compelled players around the world to invest into the new concept. For instance, in January 2020, Toyota announced that it has invested USD 400 million in a flying taxi startup, Joby Aviation. Similarly, Uber elevate invested USD 75 million in Joby Aviation to develop flying taxi service. Further, In March 2022, Suzuki Motor Corporation announced plans to invest in Japan based start-up, SkyDrive, to develop flying cars. The flying car concept is expected to drastically change the way of commuting in the coming future as it can overcome various traffic and vehicle related problems like traffic jams, longer time to commute smaller distances and various others. Many countries like US, China, among others are planning to implement regulations over the operation of eVTOLS, which would also allure big companies and startups to invest in the flying car market globally.

Driver: Lower emissions and better running efficiency on use of flying cars will boost demand in the coming decades

Nowadays, pollution due to automobiles has become a major global problem. The eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) technology receives power from electric systems, batteries, or potentially hydrogen fuel cells. According to an article on Scientific American, researchers found that flying electric cars are expected to have 35% lower greenhouse gas emissions as compared to traditional cars if both loaded with 1 pilot and 3 passengers each. The efficiency of flying cars at the time of take-off and landing is lower as compared to traditional cars but the efficiency while running is quite higher, which would make them overall highly efficient as compared to traditional cars. Most of the problems occurring due to increase in the number vehicles on the streets such as traffic jams, longer waiting time for emergency services like medical emergency. The prolonged waiting time will get drastically reduced if the flying car will travel from the starting point to the destination point without following roads.

Challenge: Lack of vertiports will be a major challenge in the early shift to flying cars

The development of flying cars is expected to gain prominence as it is a very alluring and engaging concept for automotive companies. However, almost none of the companies come up with the infrastructural solution to take-off or land the flying car. The vertiports (take-off/landing facilities) needed for flying cars must be made in the residential areas which can become a cumbersome process in the congested urban areas. The vertiports need specialized technological zones from where flying cars can take-off or land, at present mostly airports are being leveraged by many flying car companies to test their flying cars. Similarly, Klein Vision’s (Slovakia) AirCar for instance, completed its test flights between airports in Nitra and Bratislava, Slovakia. The AirCar was equipped with a BMW engine and ran on conventional petrol. In October 2022, Volcopter (Germany), an urban air mobility (UAM) start-up announced its first fully functional vertiport after the successful testing of their first crewed eVTOL at Fiumicino’s Leonardo da Vinci International Airport in Italy. In 2022, the Federal Aviation Administration released its new guidelines for the design of vertiports and vertistops. Many airports such as Cranfield, Cologne, and Düsseldorf, as well as other aerodromes owned by the Aéroport de Paris (ADP) company will be modified to incorporate vertiports and vertistops inside them.

Key Players

AeroMobil (Slovakia), Boeing (US), Joby Aviation (US), Airbus (Netherlands), PAL-V International B.V. (Netherlands), Samson Motorworks (US), Cartivator (Japan), Uber Technologies (US), Urban Aeronautics (Israel), Volcopter GmbH. (Germany), Moller International (US) and others are the key companies operating in the flying car market. These companies adopted new product launches, deals such as partnership, and collaborations to gain traction in the flying car market.

Key Developments

• In March 2022, AeroMobil launched AM NEXT, the world’s first 4-seater flying car. This car leverages the same engineering on which its previous AM 4.0 is based upon, which is a 2-seater version. The company has revealed that AM NEXT is a fleet aerial ride-hailing service which will launch in 2027. Moreover, the flying car will offer a range of 100-150 miles.
• In October 2022, Volocopter announced that they have successfully conducted the first eVTOL with passengers’ on-board test flights in Italian airspace at the Leonardo da Vinci International Airport. This test is a milestone towards launching the advanced air mobility (AAM) services in Rome by 2024.
• In December 2020, Uber announced to hand over its flying car project, Uber Elevate, to Joby Aviation, an air taxi start-up. Under this agreement, Uber has also decided to invest USD 75 million in Joby Aviation’s vision of building flying taxi.

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