A coalition of groups last week hosted the first-ever Arizona Advanced Air Mobility Summit in Scottsdale. Advanced Air Mobility refers to drones, but also a new kind of air transportation that uses electric or hybrid electric aircraft that operate kind of like helicopters.
They’re called eVTOLs, which stands for electric vertical takeoff and landing; that means they don’t need runways.
Michelle Olson, chief client officer and head of the Aerospace and Defense and Advanced Air Mobility Practice for the PR firm Lambert, believes they’re well-suited to operate inside and within cities — to move both people and cargo, like an air taxi.
Olson joined The Show to talk more about this emerging industry, starting with what the status is of the eVTOLs in Arizona, especially since the state has, in the recent past, been pretty receptive to this kind of new transportation technology.
Full conversation
MICHELLE OLSON: You know, Arizona is really advanced in a lot of ways technologically advanced. So with our autonomous vehicles, they're everywhere. Now here in the Phoenix metropolitan area and with our chip manufacturing and battery production, hydrogen power production, there are manufacturers here of semitrucks that are hydrogen-powered and we've got, I think, some presence of every electric vehicle that's being manufactured or batteries that are being manufactured here.
So we're very far advanced in that regard. We're also far advanced in having aerospace companies and contractors that are here in Arizona. What we're not advanced in are these particular aircraft. And so I think Arizona is very well poised to attract the production of some of these aircraft and more importantly to attract the operations, where we get the aircraft here and we can start utilizing them to hop between cities in a quicker, more sustainable way than sitting on a freeway.
MARK BRODIE: Well, that's the part that I'm particularly interested in, in terms of how these might be used here. Because, you know, we hear all the time what good flying conditions, the Phoenix area typically has. I'm wondering like in your perfect world, what would it look like to have these sort of air taxis, you know, operating along with all the other types of, you know, ground taxis and rideshare and autonomous vehicles and you know, all the other ways that people can get around if they're not driving their own car?
OLSON: I think in, in my perfect world, it would take kind of our more farther out cities and connect them more readily to downtown Phoenix and also to each other. So imagine you have business in Buckeye and then you have business in the afternoon in Chandler and you want to get between those two cities without sitting on I-10 for an hour, which is typically what it might take without rush hour. So in 15 minutes between Buckeye and Chandler, you could fly and get to your next appointment much quicker.
Or if you are, say there's an accident on I-10 and all avenues to get public safety there are closed. It's really easy to get an eVTOL into the scene of an accident and drop a doctor off or inevitably remove a patient without disrupting the process of cleaning up that accident and relieving congestion around it sooner.
BRODIE: What kinds of regulations need to be in place before these can really pardon the pun take off? I mean, we've seen, for example, policymakers kind of struggle at times with how to regulate drones, for example, you know, something else that, that flies in the air.
What kinds of, of regulations, what kind of rules do you think need to be in place before these can really become something that are ubiquitous?
OLSON: I think outside of the aircraft being certified so that they're safe and reliable and, and all of that and, and the industry really focuses on safety first. So the FAA is handling all of that, but once the aircraft is on the ground, the FAA is no longer has jurisdiction. So the rules and regulations come from the city.
So city ordinances to allow this kind of a short takeoff and landing kind of experience that's passenger carrying, that's not just public safety, which most of our helicopters that fly around now are either news or public safety or owned by, you know, someone that's cutting, you know, across town to get to their destination. But to have a, a taxi experience, there will be a whole set of rules that need to be adopted.
BRODIE: Are there concerns about the heat here in the summer? Like I know, for example, some of the companies that were looking to do drone deliveries realized that they couldn't fly the drones above a certain temperature. Is that a concern for, for these vehicles as well?
OLSON: It's being looked at certainly. One of the analysts that I've talked to, he, he keeps saying and the only thing Phoenix has against it is it's hot. But then you talk to NASA, and NASA is like, “we land on Mars, you know, we can, we can do things that are, that are unpredictable and what might seem unattainable for others.”
So it, it is, you know, battery, as we know, as we drive around in Phoenix batteries don't last well in the heat, and these are battery operated vehicles. So it's all being worked on right now.
BRODIE: What kinds of, of costs might we be looking at? I know we're still very early in this. But you know, if you're talking about using these as air taxis, how do you make it so that they are cost effective to be able to compete with, with ground transportation.
OLSON: That's gonna be the, something that absolutely has to, to work or consumers aren't gonna adopt it. And as with most technology, it starts out more expensive and sometimes the early adopters are people that have more disposable income. So I think the prices will probably start higher at the outset when they're, it's not at scale when there aren't as many vehicles and will come down.
A few of the manufacturers started by talking about it being the same price as an Uber Black. And they've, they've kind of backpedaled from that statement. I think it might be a little bit more than that.
BRODIE: I'm curious about safety concerns in terms of whether these craft are safe to be up in the air with, you know, who and, and what might be on them along with everything else in the sky and like takeoff and landing especially, you know, something so new. Is there a concern that people are going to look at these and be like, yeah, that seems really cool, but maybe you try it first and we'll see how it goes.
OLSON: The aircraft are being produced to what the aviation industry calls 10 to the minus nine standards. So that is the highest level of safety for commercial jets and that's where the FAA is certifying them. So from an aircraft safety perspective, they're running through scenarios that, that are new that they wouldn't run through necessarily with a commercial jet just because of the battery propulsion systems, they won't be certified if they don't meet that 10 to the minus nine standard.
I have zero worry at all about that when it comes to where we're going to operate them over congested cities and how we're gonna land them, and the curiosity of people, you know, then it, it's a different conversation because they may be operated outside of an airport. And most likely they will be.
So I think all of that will be worked out in as, as one of those, “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” but they're working on the regulations related to that and the safety net that has to go around the ground operations in order for that to happen.
