Volocopter, a German startup building electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles has secured $182 million of investment capital to continue developing its “air taxi,” a plug-in aircraft designed to carry a few passengers on short flights to local destinations.
TechCrunch reports that Volocopter, a German startup company attempting to build electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles, has raised $182 million in the second signing of its Series E funding round. This is added to the $170 million the company raised for the same round in March at a $1.87 billion post-money valuation.
The company is currently testing its two-seater VoloCity air taxi based on requirements laid out by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). The new investment will be used to finance the company’s testing process to bring it closer to Special Condition for small category VTOL aircraft certification.
The company hopes to certify its aircraft by the second half of 2023 and launch initial revenue-generating rides by 2024. Helena Treeck, Volocopter’s head of PR, told TechCrunch via email:
First commercial operations will be a small number of Volocopters flying on specific routes (maybe one or two) with paying customers.
From there, the network of routes will continuously grow to offer more and more routes and flights on connections, where we can really add value (beyond the fantastic view) to our customers, like time savings and predictability of services.
Earlier this month, the VoloCity had its first crewed publish test flight out of Rome’s Fiumicino Airport where the company also demoed its VoloIQ digital platform that Volocopter says will support its aircraft, offering everything from customer bookings to managing flight operations.
Breitbart News has reported on electric “plug-in planes” for some time. In October, a startup named Wisk founded in 2019 with backing from Boeing debuted its sixth generation remote-piloted “air taxi.”
Breitbart News wrote:
Wisk’s goal is reportedly to create a flying taxi service, that can be hailed with an app, similar to Uber or Lyft. And once the air taxi is called, the plan is to not have a pilot onboard. Instead, the aircraft will fly on autopilot, with a human supervising remotely.
The company’s plan is to have the electric plane take off and land from vertiports — areas located on the rooftops of buildings where aircraft can land and take off vertically.
The company says it would like to have this air taxi service up and running within the next five years.
According to Wisk, its aircraft has a cruising speed of roughly 138 miles per hour, a range of 90 miles with reserves, and can fly at an altitude of 2,500 to 4,000 feet above ground.
And in September, another company had its all-electric passenger aircraft complete its first 8-minute test flight.
Read more at TechCrunch here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan