Is The First Flying Taxi Finally Here?


German company Volocopter recently unveiled its latest version of a flying taxi, named as the VoloCity. This electrical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) which the company soon hopes to build and certify for flying permits, is meant for flying within cities.

The CEO of Volocopter, Florian Reuter, said in a recent press statement that this is the most powerful Volocopter yet. It is specifically designed to meet the Urban Air Mobility demands and incorporates all requirements of EASA’s SC-VTOL certification standards. It is a combined outcome of all our insights gathered from our extensive testing programs over the past few years. With this, we will open the first commercial routes and bring Urban Air Mobility to life.

The VoloCity will not be able to match the speed of a ground taxi on the open road. Its planned speed is 110 km/h, which is a little over 68 mph. It’ll have a range of 35 km or 21.7 miles. However, the VoloCity doesn’t need to have extended range or hit top speeds at least at first, hopes the Volocopter.

Since 2011, the company has been working on its eVTOLs. In 2017, the company signed a contract with the Dubai government to initiate tests of its VoloCity and has performed public tests.

the design and technical specifications of the VoloCity have been informed by a market research with several hundred potential customers and the learnings of over 1,000 test flights on previous Volocopter generations.