In early September, Munich-based Lilium announced that it had raised $90M in a Series B funding round. Investors included Chinese tech giant Tencent; private banking and asset management firm LGT; U.K.-based venture capitalist firm Atomico (a Series A investor); and Obvious Ventures.
On Aug 28, the company Passenger Drone announced that it had been working in “stealth mode” on a two-seat distributed electric VTOL aircraft: “For the past three years, Passenger Drone has been developing a zero-emissions, easy-to-use passenger drone that has the potential to eliminate stressful commutes.
On Sept. 26, Gwen Lighter, CEO of the GoFly Prize Group, LLC, announced a global competition to encourage innovators to create safe and easy-to-use personal flying devices.
AHS is proud to kick off its original series of eVTOL News videos! Episode 1: "Kitty Hawk Flyer Demo" is an interview with Kitty Hawk's director of engineering, Dr. Todd Reichert (of Aerovelo fame), and includes clips from the first public flight on July 28, 2017 at EAA AirVenture 2017 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
From Vertiflite, Nov/Dec 2017
The Promises and Challenges of Electric Vertical Flight
Chinese company Zhejiang Geely, which owns the Volvo and Lotus car brands, has reportedly acquired flying car company Terrafugia.
The Chinese drone company, EHang, revealed in July that its EHang 184 eVTOL conducted numerous tests for Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), and that many passengers had been flown to date in China and Dubai.
Bruchsal, Germany-based Volocopter (previously known as “e-volo GmbH”) has continued its series of stunning announcements. The company, which made the world’s first manned multicopter flight in March 2016 with its VC200 eVTOL demonstrator, is preparing to fly its next aircraft, the pre-series 2X multicopter. The first 2X is complete and the second 2X is in fabrication.
Airbus Helicopters has unveiled more information about their CityAirbus quad duct electric VTOL. CityAirbus is a multi-passenger, self-piloted eVTOL demonstrator “designed for urban air mobility with cost efficiency, high-volume production and a low environmental footprint in mind.”
A3 by Airbus Group, the company’s Silicon Valley outpost, is independently developing another eVTOL concept. The single-seat, self-piloted Vahana eVTOL uses four electric propellers each on its canard and aft wing.
