With Government Support Assured, Will Indian Skies See Electric Air Taxis Soon?

Success can be contagious. Two years ago, the Indian government showed canny anticipation in recognising the compelling proposition that drones offered, as a means of cost-effective, even strategic, delivery of light civilian and military payloads by air.

Its initial regulatory response was all bureaucratic bumph, no vision — and would have quickly throttled this nascent technology. 

Luckily, howls of protest from the stakeholders coupled with a quick governmental course correction ensured that the regulations became light-touch, allowing private enterprise to innovate and grow, unshackled, making the Indian drone ecosystem one of the world’s fastest growing and most versatile.

Is this salutary history set to repeat itself? 

Union Civil Aviation Secretary Rajiv Bansal is confident it will.

Speaking in Bengaluru,  at India’s first-ever conference on Advanced Short Haul Air (ASHA) Mobility organised last month, by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), he said: “After the rollout of Production Linked Scheme for drones, we are now ready to take the next big steps in the e-VTOL system”.

He added that the future of eVTOLs is much closer than what it appears to be: “This global dream will likely become a reality in 2025.  India wants very much to be part of this global initiative.”

The eVTOL — or electric Vertical Take Off and Landing craft is the smaller, electric battery-fuelled avatar of the VTOL aircraft or ‘Jump Jet’ that military aviation companies like Harrier, first launched in the early 1970s.

It can move small payloads of people or cargo over small distances in the sky — much as a taxi or a small van does today on roads. In other words, it is the aerial version of the electric car or Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV).

It is part of what is loosely referred to as Advanced Air Mobility or AAM, a term that includes eVTOLs, drones, light helicopters and other short distance air transport.

The Civil Aviation Ministry is slated to commission a study of the eVTOL opportunity to kickstart innovation and enterprise in India, Bansal revealed.

Salil Gupta, president, Boeing India and chair of CII’s national committee on aerospace, suggested at the conference that India could leapfrog into AAM and ’electrify’ it in much the same way — possibly faster — than what it did in mobile phones.

Many MoUs

It looked like some had already picked up the gauntlet the ministry threw down: the Bengaluru conference saw some MoUs signed or announced on its side lines, between players planning to bring eVTOL transportation to India soon:

Private player FlyBlade India has partnered with US-based Jaunt Air Mobility to launch e-air taxis here by 2027. Blade operates light aircraft in places like Mumbai and Bengaluru to offer short commutes between city centre and airport or link to places like Shirdi and Pune.

Jaunt Air is headquartered in Dallas, Texas with its manufacturing plant in Montreal, Canada where it makes the Jaunt Journey all-electric VTOL piloted aircraft which carries up to four people, in and around urban areas.  

Incidentally, another Indian entity, L&T is providing Jaunt, engineering services at an R&D alongside Jaunt’s manufacturing unit, offering structural design, analysis, certification and manufacturing support. 

Jaunt Air Mobility plans on demonstrating its e-aircraft later this year after certification by aviation authorities in the US and Canada. FlyBlade has entered into an agreement to procure 170 Jaunt Journeys for starters.

Another MoU signed was between Hunch Ventures (which is already in partnership with FlyBlade) and US-based Beta Technologies to assemble, operate, and maintain eVTOLs in India, a deal that may also involve Beta’s own e-flying car, Alia.

In a partnership announced in February 2022, Tech Mahindra joined with Los Altos (California-US)-based NFT, to help develop electric ‘drive-n-fly’ vehicles.

The partners are working to launch a four-seater e-flying machine, Aska, with a range of 400 km, by 2026. Tech Mahindra will bring to the table its experience with fabrication using composite materials. The vehicle was unveiled at the CES show in Las Vegas in January this year. 

Indigenous Designs

Some Indian efforts in designing and developing flying cars from scratch are also ongoing:

- The ePlane Company incubated at IIT Madras and was co-founded in 2017 by Prof Satya Chakravarthy is working on its eVTOL, which is designed to take off like a drone and fly like a plane. They call it ‘the world’s most compact flying electric taxi’ with a 5 metre by 5 metre footprint,  a two-seater weighing 200 kg and hope to start logistics flight in early 2024. A full-scale body was shown at the Aero India show in Bengaluru, earlier this year. 

- Bengaluru-based startup Bumble Bee Flights Pvt Ltd received $37 million in funding in late 2022 to develop what founder Arjun Das has named Bee-1, a one-passenger eVTOL with a 100 km range.

Between these initiatives, it is safe to assume that when e-flying cars take off world-wide in  a couple of years, some at least might be in Indian skies.