Air taxi eVTOLs star at Paris Air Show’s first aerial mobility section
The Paris Air Show broke all records for attendance with its habitual large-draw long-haul passenger planes and military jets, but the main stars of the 2023 biannual event were arguably the next-generation electric takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxis making their first appearance.
The Paris Air Show closed its doors at Le Bourget yesterday, with organizers reporting 400,000 visitors during the first weeklong exhibition since COVID-19 forced cancellation of the 2021 event. While most of the $55 billion in deals signed during the gathering involved traditional aircraft, however, no small amount of that activity – and public interest – was generated by the show’s first-ever Paris Air Mobility section, gathering top eVTOL developers readying air taxi services for as early as next year.
DroneDJ checked out the tech on hand and now shares a few images of the new annual attraction.
Full-sized and -equipped eVTOLs by leading sector companies Archer and Volocopter attracted enormous crowd interest – the latter as the craft scheduled to provide the world’s first air taxi services during the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics.
Sector rivals including Eve and Lilium participated with demonstration models of their respective air taxi passenger sections.
Other makers featured reduced-scale versions of their eVTOLs, including Toulouse-based Ascendance Flight Technologies’ hybrid-fueled, wing-ducted rotor-powered air taxi.
Also present were developers Airbus, Wisk, AutoFlight, Plana, Joby, and China’s EHang, which exhibited its full-scale craft.
Not surprisingly, the largest crowds to Paris Air Mobility congregated around the full-sized eVTOLs displayed by Volocopter and Archer. Close inspection of both craft revealed the emphasis makers are placing on passenger comfort and flight information tailored to each trip.
Also visible amid the new-car smells of those interiors were the controls and navigation panels pilots will use for air taxi operation.
Those and other proud displays of aerial tech doubled as sweeteners to close the many deals concluded by on-hand air taxi companies with future suppliers of their eVTOL components.
Read: Volocopter adds emergency medical response to diversifying air taxi uses
But also vital to the maiden Paris Air Mobility exhibit, said Paris Air Show chief organizer Patrick Daher, was familiarizing and enticing visiting members of the public through close-up and personal interaction with emerging transportation they’ll soon be seeing aloft – and taking for their own inner-urban travel.
“The technologies are ready, the first tests have been successful, and the revolution of daily aerial mobility may be for tomorrow,” Daher said. “Will those ‘cars’ be flying in the skies above the cities of tomorrow like in science-fiction motives? We’re almost there… and this event allows us to help the public understand that better.”
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Hyundai is about to launch a new electric SUV in China. With its big debut coming up, Hyundai just dropped a sneak peek, and it looks like it could be the IONIQ 4. Check it out for yourself in the video below.
Is Hyundai teasing the IONIQ 4?
We caught our first glimpse of the new EV model last month after Beijing Hyundai released a few official “spy” photos.
Despite the camouflage, you can see a few design elements, like a light bar across the front, slim LED headlights, and a closed-off grille. At first, it almost looks like a smaller version of the IONIQ 9, Hyundai’s first three-row electric SUV, but with a much sportier, shaped profile.
Beijing Hyundai released a new teaser for the upcoming electric SUV this week. The video shows “a wave of high-end operations” as the vehicle dances across the snow.
The video highlights features like real-time torque control, high-speed cornering, and the SUV’s impressive body control while driving around cones.
Hyundai’s new electric SUV is being called “OE” internally, according to The Korean Car Blog, suggesting it could be an IONIQ model.
All other Hyundai IONIQ EV models were also codenamed with an “E” internally, which is raising speculation that this could be the IONIQ 4.
Like most global OEMs, Hyundai is fighting to compete in an intense Chinese EV market, which is dominated by domestic automakers like BYD.
Hyundai opened its first overseas R&D center last year in China to spearhead its comeback. It will work with local suppliers and tech companies to develop EVs designed for Chinese buyers. The new electric SUV is expected to launch in China later this year, followed by three new energy vehicles, including EVs and EREVs.
Beijing Hyundai will release more information on April 16, with the electric SUV set to “challenge the limit of driving performance.”
What do you think of Hyundai’s new electric SUV? Is this the IONIQ 4? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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Charge point provider char.gy has secured a £130 million contract to install 6,000 curbside EV chargers for Brighton and Hove City Council (BHCC) – the UK’s largest installation of its kind.
London-based char.gy has also been awarded a 15-year contract to operate and maintain the charging network.
Installing Level 2 chargers curbside, where most drivers in the UK park, will enable more people to take advantage of cheaper charging rates while juicing up their EVs overnight. (charg.gy’s pay as you go night tariff, between midnight and 7 am, is £0.39/kWh, compared to its £0.59/kWh day tariff.)
John Lewis, chief executive of char.gy, said the project is “a huge moment for the UK and its EV ambitions. This partnership alone will empower thousands of residents to confidently make the switch to electric vehicles, knowing they have easy access to chargers.”
Brighton and Hove City Council is among the first to tap into the government’s Local EV Infrastructure (LEVI) Fund, designed to help English local authorities roll out charging solutions for residents without off-street parking. Future of Roads Minister Lilian Greenwood said making EV charging as accessible as possible is “crucial to making the switch to electric a success.”
The UK now has over 75,000 public EV chargers, according to the Department for Transport—and it looks like the country’s on pace to hit its 2030 target. Back in December, the National Audit Office said the rollout is “on track” to meet the DfT’s estimate that at least 300,000 chargers will be needed by the end of the decade.
Read more: Meet the UK’s largest solar + storage EV charging ‘Superhub’
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