Electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and the new urban air mobility (UAM) business model that they are designed to support have the potential to make a lot of people very happy. Passengers stand to benefit from gridlock-busting alternatives to being trapped in ever-worsening road traffic. Investors expect to be rewarded for their faith in the pioneering startups driving new products to market. And those with mounting concerns about aviation’s environmental impact see the electric aviation revolution as a prime opportunity for the industry to get more sustainable.
Last year, Nexa Advisors and the Vertical Flight Society published a forecast that the UAM market across 74 cities worldwide will be worth around $318 billion between 2020 and 2040. The study estimated that as many as 1.3 billion passengers could be carried in and around these cities in that 20-year period, generating demand for 28,000 eVTOL aircraft. Spending on infrastructure alone (ground facilities and air traffic management) was estimated at $32 billion.
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