A review of the history of global flying cars
Flying car definition
Since eVTOL manufacturers and the media have habitually called eVTOL “flying cars” for reasons such as marketing and ease of communication, the flying cars referred to in this report include both land and air dual-use flying cars. eVTOL, a vertical take-off and landing aircraft that has emerged in recent years.
1. What is a land-air flying car?
Its popular definition is: a land and air vehicle that can fly in the air and drive on land like a car, and can carry people over long distances.
According to the take-off and landing methods of land-air flying cars currently under development and successfully launched, they are divided into two types: rolling take-off and landing and vertical take-off and landing.
Taxiing takeoff and landing land and air flying vehicles require a dedicated flight runway or a motor vehicle road permitted by traffic control for takeoff and landing. A typical example is Geely's TF-1;
F-1 land and air flying car developed by Terrafugia, a subsidiary of Geely
he TF-1 land and air flying car developed by Terrafugia, a subsidiary of Geely
Vertical take-off and landing amphibious flying cars can get rid of the constraints of dedicated flight runways or motor vehicle roads. Like traditional helicopters, they can take off and land on the roof of a building or any slightly open flat land. A typical example is the Dutch company Pal -v Liberty.
Pal-v company's vertical take-off and landing flying car Liberty
Due to historical and technical reasons, the energy used by existing land and air flying cars on the market is fuel. The use of electric energy is still in the conceptual stage and has a relatively large news effect, such as Guangzhou Huitian's sixth-generation flying car.
The sixth-generation flying car concept released by Guangzhou Huitian in October 2021
2. What is eVTOL?
The full English name of eVTOL is: Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing, literally translated as "electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft". The popular definition is: an aerial "flying car" that is powered by electric energy and can take off and land vertically without the need for a dedicated runway or motor vehicle road.
Since its value proposition is initially to carry people or cargo in the air, it does not have the function of motor vehicle road travel, and many eVTOLs are not even designed with wheels.
At present, some of the more representative eVTOLs in the world include the experimental five-seater flying car of the German company Lilium and the five-seater flying car of the American JOBY company, etc.
German company Lilium’s all-electric experimental five-seater eVTOL
American Joby Company's five-seater eVTOL
1. The development history of flying cars
(1) Historical review of land and air flying vehicles
The advent of the first land-air flying car was more than a hundred years ago. The famous early aviation pioneer and "Father of Flying Cars" Greene Carter developed a flying car called "Autoplane" in 1917. It adopted a split design, and the flying part and the vehicle part could be separated. When flying, both In combination, only the vehicle part is used when driving on the ground.
The "Autoplane" split flying car for both land and air purposes developed by Carteris in 1917
Engineering drawings of the "Autoplane" split-type flying car for land and air purposes developed by Carteris in 1917
Although this flying car only completed a few exciting short "jumps" and never soared into the sky, it has been permanently recorded in history as mankind's first successful exploration of flying cars.
Over the past 100 years, more than 3,000 "flying car" designs have emerged for both land and air purposes, and dozens of prototypes have been produced, most of which are fixed-wing solutions.
Among them, the world's first and so far the only land-air flying car that has obtained a normal airworthiness certificate and a vehicle driving license is the "Aerocar" developed by American designer Moulton Taylor, which made its first flight in 1949. It officially received an airworthiness certificate issued by the U.S. Civil Aviation Administration (CAA), the predecessor of the FAA, in 1956.
"Aerocar" two-seater flying car for both land and air purposes
In addition, there are two land and air dual-use flying cars that have achieved very important results in airworthiness certification.
One is the TF-1, which was developed by Terrafugia Taili Company, a subsidiary of the Chinese Geely Group, after fifteen years of development. In early 2021, it obtained a special airworthiness certificate (special airworthiness certificate) for the "Light Sport Aircraft" (LSA) category issued by the FAA. Although the weight exceeded the standards stipulated in the LSA category, which resulted in many deviations and exemptions being applied for in the certification process, it was not easy to obtain a chartered airworthiness certificate.
The other is the AirCar developed by Klein Vision in Slovakia, which received an airworthiness certificate issued by the Slovak Transport Administration in early 2022.
Anton Zajac, co-founder of the company, declared in an interview with the media: "The airworthiness certificate is an official certificate issued in accordance with the regulations of all EASA member countries. Therefore, Aircar can fly to the United Kingdom, and we do plan to fly from Paris to London in the near future. .”
Aircar, a land and air flying car developed by Klein Vision
(2) eVTOL historical review
According to the U.S. Vertical Flight Society (VFS) website, the eVTOL pioneer JOBY, established in 2009, is the earliest known company in the world to start a business in this field. It began secretly developing eVTOL at the beginning of its establishment. According to the company's 2021 forecast, if the airworthiness certification goes smoothly, their air taxi service will be launched in 2024.
The concept of eVTOL was proposed in 2011, two years after JOBY was established. The world's helicopter giant Italian company "August Westland" first proposed the eVTOL product concept in a project called "Project Zero".
The project aims to verify a series of advanced technologies and concepts such as eVTOL all-electric drive and new propulsion mode. After this attempt, the aviation industry realized that helicopters with a history of nearly a century have huge room for disruptive innovation in the field of civil aviation. eVTOL will improve energy types, distributed electric propulsion, structural design, control systems and safety. It is enough to bring huge value to human travel and life.
In 2014, the American Helicopter Association (AHA) and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) formally affirmed the eVTOL concept at the Virginia Conference. As a result, traditional aviation companies, car companies, venture capital institutions and new eVTOL forces around the world have launched, promoted or accelerated entrepreneurial projects in the eVTOL field.
It is Uber, the global shared travel giant, that really makes eVTOL popular. In 2016, Uber proposed the “Uber Elevate” urban air taxi plan, which directly triggered the global eVTOL wave.
Uber air taxi
At this time, VFS, which has a history of more than 70 years, realized that with the development of key technologies such as batteries, electronic controls, electric motors, lightweight composite materials, and flight controls, eVTOL will most likely trigger a new round of aviation revolution.
In 2017, VFS compiled the industry's first eVTOL catalog and released it to the public. At the same time, it hopes to help industry companies, researchers and government agencies to jointly break through issues including technology, regulations, infrastructure, traffic management and safety through related work. many business obstacles.
Subsequently, regulatory authorities also stepped up their work on regulatory innovation at levels such as airworthiness certification.
In 2019, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) issued new aviation management regulations for the certification of eVTOLs, in order to establish a new, more targeted regulatory system for eVTOLs.
The FAA has revised the certification part of the original aviation regulations for small aircraft to allow eVTOL airframes, engines and propellers to be certified as a whole. This has allowed the eVTOL design concept to be highly integrated with the propulsion system and airframe. Regulatory support.
At this point, external obstacles to the development of the eVTOL industry have begun to be removed one by one.
These have prompted the mushrooming of eVTOL projects around the world. According to the eVTOL catalog released by VFS, the number of eVTOLs currently being developed around the world has surged from the initial six to hundreds.
Secondly, with the help of the capital market, the financing conditions for eVTOL startups have achieved historic breakthroughs.
In 2019, Guangzhou EHang Intelligent, the world's first eVTOL stock, was listed on NASDAQ in the United States.
After entering 2021, the pace of listing of global eVTOL startups has greatly accelerated. As of the date of the report, four have completed listings in the form of SPAC in 2021. They are JOBY from the United States, Lilium from Germany, Archer from the United States and Vertical Aerospace from the UK.
In addition, in addition to the temporary suspension of the listing plan of German volocopter, Eve UAM, a subsidiary of Embraer, has finalized its listing in the second quarter of 2022.
By then, the global distribution pattern of eVTOL listed companies will be: 2 in the United States, 1 in China, 1 in Germany, 1 in the United Kingdom, and 1 in Brazil.
The background and typical characteristics of the rise of the global eVTOL industry
1. Background of the rise
(1) Global climate warming, governments of all countries act in unison and strive to reduce carbon emissions
On December 12, 2015, nearly 200 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change reached the Paris Agreement at the Paris Climate Change Conference. Arrangements have been made for global action on climate change after 2020.
The Paris Agreement clearly proposes to limit the increase in global average temperature to no more than 2 degrees Celsius compared with the pre-industrial period, and strives to limit the temperature increase to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
This means that human society has begun the largest transformation of energy structure since the industrial revolution.
As a fully electric-driven aircraft, the emergence of eVTOL conforms to the development trend of the times.
(2) The electric vehicle industry is developing rapidly
According to Canalys' latest statistics on global electric vehicle market sales, global electric vehicle (EV) sales will reach 6.5 million units in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 109%, and already account for 9% of all passenger car sales.
Among them, in 2021, more than 3.2 million electric vehicles were sold in mainland China, accounting for half of global electric vehicle sales and 2 million more than 2020 sales.
Canalys chief analyst Jason Low said: "From small, cheap city cars to mainstream, high-end sedans and SUVs, many new models are launched every month. 15% of new cars sold in mainland China in 2021 will be electric vehicles, which is Sales volume more than doubled in 2020, and there are still significant growth opportunities in 2022 and beyond."
The growth trend of electric vehicle sales in the Chinese market in the past 10 years
The rapid development of the global electric vehicle industry has spilled over to the eVTOL industry, especially in terms of battery life and large-scale mass production, and has accumulated rich experience for eVTOL.
(3) Private flying is still a non-civilian sport
The market size of traditional helicopters and general aviation fixed-wing aircraft is very limited due to restrictions on take-off and landing sites, safety, noise, and expensive manufacturing costs, use costs, and maintenance costs. This greatly limits their popularization.
Today, private flying remains an aristocratic sport. The emergence and advantages of eVTOL will most likely overturn this situation.
(4) Wall Street’s desires require new market growth points to satisfy
The rise of the eVTOL craze is essentially the need of Wall Street to find new market growth points. eVTOL conforms to the trend of the times and has many possibilities to satisfy the desires and appeals of Wall Street.
(5) Travel congestion within large cities and super urban agglomerations has not been well resolved.
The investment cost of subways and light rails is very high, and subways and light rails in large cities and super urban agglomerations can only solve part of the congestion due to their limited functions and coverage areas.
In contrast, the take-off and landing facilities required for eVTOL operations are relatively economical. In addition to using existing airports, transportation nodes can also be set up on the tops of high-rise buildings in urban and suburban areas to meet point-to-point transportation, greatly reducing travel time, and at the same time, urban CBDs can also be used. Can be distributed more widely.
(6) A group of new cross-border entrepreneurs represented by Musk who are persistent in their dreams continue to achieve success.
The continued success of SpaceX, founded by Musk, continues to inspire batches of ambitious entrepreneurs to devote themselves to the great aerospace technology revolution. As an emerging branch of the aviation industry with great potential, the eVTOL industry has a high probability of carrying their dreams.
2. Typical characteristics
(1) Commercial operations have high requirements on eVTOL’s environmental protection, reliability and safety.
eVTOL is popular because of UAM, but if urban manned vehicles accidentally crash, it will cause consequences that both regulatory authorities and the public will not be able to bear.
In the 1970s, after the Vietnam War, a large number of retired military helicopters poured into New York City's urban air transportation field, and helicopter travel became all the rage. But everything came to an abrupt end in 1977 when a helicopter crashed on the roof of the Pan Am Building, causing heavy casualties on the ground.
In the decades since, urban noise pollution has become increasingly serious, and the number of rooftop helicopter landing pads in many major U.S. cities has continued to decline.
(2) High entry barriers
The eVTOL industry is capital-intensive, technology-intensive, and talent-intensive, requiring considerable initial fixed investment. According to a research report released by the Lufthansa Innovation Center in February 2021, eVTOL start-ups will need at least US$700 million to US$1 billion in funding to complete the process from product development, airworthiness certification to commercialization.
(3) Product development and airworthiness certification are cumbersome, time-consuming and costly
eVTOL is a new thing in the aviation industry. Its technical specifications are different from those of traditional aircraft. The civil aviation regulatory authorities still lack sufficient accumulation in airworthiness certification.
In addition, every improvement in the development process of the aircraft needs to pass the certification of the bureau in real time, which is completely different from the software development model of Internet companies of "running fast in small steps and iterating quickly".
The civil aviation regulatory authorities not only shoulder the mission of promoting the development of the aviation industry, but also shoulder the important task of maintaining public safety.
If we refer to the safety level of civil aviation aircraft, it means that the work of obtaining airworthiness certification will be very long.
Take China's eVTOL leader EHang as an example. Its EH216-S was released as early as 2018, but its airworthiness certification work did not begin to make substantial progress until 2021.
Currently, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has officially issued the "Special Conditions for EHang EH216-S Unmanned Aircraft System" on February 9, 2022, which means that EHang's eVTOL has officially entered the airworthiness certification process.
Next, EHang needs to submit its own review basis, which will include multiple clauses, and the Bureau will check whether these clauses meet the requirements one by one. If it does not comply, the Administrator will send it back to the enterprise for revision until the Administrator approves it.
Once the basis for airworthiness certification is formally determined, the company must also propose a Certification Program (CP) and Means of Compliance (MOC) based on the certification basis, which also need to be approved by the CAAC. After that, the company must indicate in accordance with the above documents Compliance.
In the traditional aviation field, regulatory agencies have higher compliance requirements. Each clause usually requires multiple compliances, and the authorities usually do not accept a single compliance. "Multiple compliance" means that enterprises use multiple compliance methods to demonstrate the product's compliance with the terms.
There are ten internationally recognized compliance demonstration methods, namely declaration of conformity (MC0), design review (MC1), analysis/calculation (MC2), safety assessment (MC3), laboratory test (MC4), ground test ( MC5), flight test (MC6), aircraft inspection (MC7), simulator test (MC8), equipment qualification (MC9).
When an enterprise uses each compliance method, there are corresponding standards and normative requirements for how to show that the review conclusion is valid.
Eventually, enterprises will face a huge compliance matrix. According to estimates by practitioners and research institutions, it may generally cost about one billion yuan to obtain airworthiness certification for eVTOL.
(4) Emerging industries, competition is globalized, and the fastest is king
As an emerging branch of the aviation industry, the emergence of a new species, eVTOL, has brought about structural changes in the civil aviation industry chain. Highly complex and sophisticated traditional aero engines have been replaced by green, zero-emission, greatly simplified battery systems. At the same time, the development of semiconductor chips, ICT, artificial intelligence and sensor technology has also promoted its cross-integration with unmanned driving technology.
Like the automobile, large aircraft, military industry, ICT, semiconductor, consumer electronics, Internet, daily necessities, food and beverage and other industries, the competition in the eVTOL industry is global competition.
Joby in the United States implements a vertical integration strategy. It integrates manufacturers and operators. Its market reach is not limited to the United States, but will also extend to Japan and South Korea in the Asia-Pacific region in 2022.
Germany's Lilium originally planned to launch urban air taxi operations in Europe and Florida in the United States in 2024. Later, the business strategy was adjusted in February 2022. In the early stage, it will mainly focus on the private business jet market, and in the long term, it will expand to urban air taxi shared travel and freight logistics services. The first partner after the adjustment is the US business jet market. Airline operator Net Jets.
EHang Intelligent, China's eVTOL pioneer, is actively expanding its markets not only in China but also around the world. In March 2022, EHang Intelligent received the largest pre-order in Malaysia to date: a total of 60 manned autonomous aerial vehicles.
Although there are still many uncertainties and risks in the eVTOL industry, the zero emissions, safety, comfort and lower cost of eVTOL are essentially in the fundamental interests of mankind. Therefore, we believe that whoever can enter first, formulate new strategies to adapt to the market and put them into action will be more likely to become the global leader in the eVTOL industry.
eVTOL product segmentation and market segmentation
1. Product segmentation
According to the existing global eVTOL overall configuration or technical route, it can be divided into five types:
(1) Multi-rotor configuration
There are multiple rotors, no wings or short wings. The aircraft also relies on propellers to provide all or part of the lift when cruising.
The German Volocopter's eVTOL adopts a multi-rotor configuration consisting of 18 rotors, which has low technical risks and low development difficulty.
Compared with traditional helicopters, due to the Dep distributed electric propulsion system, 18 rotors work at the same time, which greatly improves safety and reduces operation and maintenance costs and noise. It is more suitable for companies that are not familiar with aviation technology and industry. Start and learn. However, the multi-rotor configuration inherits the shortcomings of helicopter flight efficiency to a certain extent, so the range is shorter and the speed is slower. If there is no greater breakthrough in battery technology, its future use scenarios will be relatively limited.
Volocopter’s 18-rotor structure eVTOL
(2) Composite wing configuration
It has wings and independent propellers to provide lift and cruise thrust.
Although the composite wing configuration is a new configuration that only appeared after the Dep distributed electric propulsion system, it retains the characteristics of traditional fixed-wing aircraft to the greatest extent, and on this basis, it significantly improves the safety characteristics, which means excellent technology performance, lower development risks and costs, airworthiness paths and compliance methods familiar to regulatory authorities, and faster development speed, it is the most balanced and reasonable option under the current technology and market conditions, and it is also the most balanced and reasonable option for most people with deep industry experience. And the company of insight coincides with the choice.
At present, the Alia-250 of the American Beta Beta Company is a relatively typical composite wing configuration.
The Alia-250, owned by Beta Beta Corporation of the United States, uses a composite wing configuration.
(3) Tilt configuration
There is a wing, and any vector propeller provides both vertical lift and horizontal cruise thrust. The tilting configuration includes but is not limited to tilting wings, tilting rotors, and tilting ducts.
The world-famous military aircraft V-22, nicknamed the Osprey, uses a tilt-rotor configuration. It was jointly developed by the American Boeing Company and Bell Helicopter Company in the 1980s. It successfully made its first flight on March 19, 1989. After a long period of After testing, modification, and verification work, it entered service in the U.S. Air Force on November 16, 2006.
The tilting configuration Osprey aircraft MV-22 currently equipped by the U.S. Air Force
For eVTOL, the technical route is already ready. In theory, it only needs to change petroleum power to electric power.
The biggest feature of this configuration is that the rotor can adjust its direction as needed. During the take-off phase, the rotor provides lift like a helicopter propeller. During level flight, the rotor can tilt forward to provide forward thrust, and the lift is resolved by the fixed wing.
The advantages of this configuration are that it is lighter in weight, has greater thrust, and has advantages in speed and range. But the disadvantage is that the tilting mechanism is a complex mechanical design. Once any mechanical design becomes complex, accuracy and reliability become more difficult to guarantee. A total of more than 400 Osprey aircraft have been produced. However, due to complex control, 12 total loss accidents have occurred, resulting in 42 deaths.
The American Joby five-seater 4S adopts a tilt-rotor configuration.
Therefore, if eVTOL startups lack the necessary talent support, it means higher development risks and costs, a more difficult airworthiness certification process, and a longer development cycle. The long development cycle and airworthiness certification process of the five-seater 4S owned by the American company Joby may confirm this to some extent.
(4) Tilt-rotating ducted fan + complete vector control
With wings and no control surface, eVTOL's lift, thrust, heading and attitude control are all provided by tilting ducted fans
The German company Lilium chose this technical route, which integrates a ducted fan with a tilting wing. Its five-seat prototype currently uses up to 36 small-sized ducted fans to provide lift, thrust, heading and attitude control, completely eliminating the control surfaces of traditional aircraft. The appearance is fashionable and cool, with a sci-fi feel.
The ducted fan eliminates the safety hazards of open propellers. If the duct and fan can be well matched, this technology can also have a thrust-increasing effect.
Lilium five-seater small tilting ducted fan design
Although the complete vector control technology without control surfaces has not yet been adopted or verified by any traditional aircraft, it has been used in outer space to maneuver satellites in space orbits.
Senior experts in the industry believe that the Lilium flying car has too many high-speed rotating moving parts, which will cause poor durability. Compared with competitors such as Joby, Archer, Vertical aerospace, etc., subsequent maintenance will be very inconvenient.
Therefore, whether this technical route can adapt to market needs requires further observation.
(5) Hidden propulsion system + wingless design
The British Bellwether leader has adopted this technical route. The Volar model it launched is a futuristic eVTOL with a wingless design, a hidden propulsion system, four ducted fans, and a streamlined body that looks like A supercar.
Volar has not yet built a full-scale prototype.
Bellwether's Volar speed car
2.Market segmentation
eVTOL products have become popular due to the introduction of the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) concept. It can be expected that with the development of battery, motor, electronic control and other technologies, the market scope it covers will become wider and wider.
(1) Carrying passengers:
1) Carrying passengers in the city
It mainly includes two parts: urban air taxi and airport air shuttle. Its value is reflected in avoiding ground traffic congestion, saving travel time and improving urban travel efficiency.
Urban air taxis can be simply understood as a replica of urban ground taxis in the air. Since it is flying over densely populated cities, the reliability and safety required for operation will be very demanding. The five major global manufacturers that have already entered the capital market have clearly stated the time nodes for the online operation of air taxis in their respective cities. However, Whether this can be achieved remains to be seen.
Airport air shuttle operations with fixed routes may be much easier.
Taking the US market as an example, New York Airways has been operating helicopters connecting Wall Street, Midtown Manhattan and surrounding airports for 30 years.
It only takes 5 minutes to fly from New York's LaGuardia Airport (LGA) to Wall Street, and only 10 minutes to fly from Midtown Manhattan to JFK Airport (JFK), while it may take 70 minutes by car.
Therefore, at present, this field is one of the easiest markets for eVTOL manufacturers to enter.
2) Intercity navigation
Although the current five major manufacturers are still generally limited by battery life, according to a flight test data released by the American JOBY company in July 2021, eVTOL has been able to achieve uninterrupted unmanned flight of 247 kilometers on a single charge. If the news is true, this will be enough to meet the needs of frequent and efficient intercity travel within super city clusters around the world.
3) Business jet
On February 28, 2022, the German company Lilium announced that it would adjust its established business strategy. That is to say, in the early stage, the market will focus on the field of business jets.
4) Scenic spot aerial tour
China's eVTOL pioneer EHang Intelligent officially appointed Mr. Fang Xin, who has a background in the tourism industry, as chief operating officer on February 24, 2022.
This move shows that China’s eVTOL manned flights will most likely start with aerial tours of scenic spots.
(2) Cargo loading:
In the field of freight transportation, especially for fresh food and business correspondence that require high timeliness, eVTOL will most likely replace some traditional short- and medium-distance airlines and short- and medium-distance trucks.
Cherepinsky, the then innovation director of the American Sikorsky Corporation, publicly stated at a press conference on February 8, 2022 that it was currently considering applying one of its autonomous flight control systems called Matrix to eVTOL unmanned cargo flights. .
(3) Public services
The cost, safety and noise advantages of eVTOL compared to traditional helicopters make it possible for large-scale application in public service fields such as urban firefighting, medical rescue, search and rescue, agriculture, forestry and plant protection.
(4) Military and police market.
1) Military market
In February 2020, the U.S. Air Force officially launched a demonstration project called "Agility Prime" to explore the aviation industry's emerging eVTOL electric vertical takeoff and landing technology in military missions such as special operations, rescue search, and short-distance transportation. The feasibility of application in the field will promote the direct transformation of commercial and civilian technologies into the military field.
At present, many American eVTOL manufacturers such as JOBY and Beta have participated in the project.
2) Police market
Although China's police market is still relatively small, public security agencies across China began to equip police helicopters in the early 1990s. As of the end of 2019, public security agencies in 24 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities across the country have established 40 aviation police teams, equipped with approximately 67 police helicopters and more than 100 police aviation pilots.
It is foreseeable that eVTOL's advantages in cost, noise, safety, etc. will most likely replace the original helicopter police market.
(5)Private household market
Human beings have an innate dream of flying. Whether in terms of cost, safety, comfort, etc., eVTOL will have more advantages than traditional helicopters, civil aviation aircraft and traditional general aviation aircraft to help people realize this dream.
Although it is currently very unlikely for private individuals to drive eVTOLs in cities, it is not impossible in the vast countryside.
First of all, the vast countryside has many nearly zero-cost take-off and landing sites; secondly, the countryside is relatively sparsely populated, and if the flight route is properly planned, there will be enough space to tolerate various accidents.