Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Speaker 2: Tim Stenoveek on Bloomberg Radio. The China focused business news
Speaker 2: site Kaishin today reporting that what was actually this week
Speaker 2: yesterday that China has unveiled draft rules to speed up
Speaker 2: certification of EV tall aircraft. We're talking about electric vertical
Speaker 2: takeoff and landing aircraft. You haven't been on one yet? Yeah, no,
Speaker 2: neither of I. The story goes on to note though,
Speaker 2: the regulatory competition with the US, siting industry executives for more.
Speaker 2: We're joined once again by Lisa Wright. She's founder and
Speaker 2: CEO of Landings. It's a company that says it's building
Speaker 2: a landing in ground operations and network of verteports for
Speaker 2: EV talls. She joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive
Speaker 2: Brokers studio. Welcome back, Thank you for having me back.
Speaker 2: The regulatory landscape is a really important part of this,
Speaker 2: and I think last time you're on with us, you
Speaker 2: said that the first passenger carrying EV talls will happen
Speaker 2: in the Middle East, it won't happen here in the US.
Speaker 2: Is that still the case?
Speaker 3: That is still the case. I mean, they are carrying
Speaker 3: passengers in China, but the Middle East will be next,
Speaker 3: and then the US is coming pretty close behind.
Speaker 2: Is it a disadvantage in terms of the relatory environment
Speaker 2: here versus other countries.
Speaker 3: No, the FAA has been working very hard. Actually, they've
Speaker 3: streamlined and done a lot of fast tracking and changed
Speaker 3: the training for pilots because there's going to be new
Speaker 3: pilot training, et cetera. So I don't think the regulations
Speaker 3: in the air has been an issue. It's just you know,
Speaker 3: in Dubai and the UAE, they were more excited about
Speaker 3: building the infrastructure first. So I'm very much about the infrastructure.
Speaker 3: So that's why we're trying to build.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about that because when we talk about
Speaker 1: electric vehicles. We just did a story this week about
Speaker 1: kind of how things are sliding backwards. And I think
Speaker 1: initially early on, at least as so much of it
Speaker 1: was the infrastructure wasn't there, the charging networks, and it
Speaker 1: created anxiety among the consumers. So talk to us about
Speaker 1: the infrastructure build out, where you guys are in this
Speaker 1: process and what are some of the hurdles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, there's definitely a lot of hurdles. Number one
Speaker 3: is energy. So getting access to energy is hard. We're
Speaker 3: not really competing with data centers, but data centers are
Speaker 3: looking for energy and areas that we're looking for energy
Speaker 3: as well. So what we're doing is we have two
Speaker 3: people on the team who are specifically looking at energy,
Speaker 3: getting the equipment financed and working with utilities, but also
Speaker 3: providing battery backup and energy systems in front of the
Speaker 3: meter in order to take up the slack for the charging.
Speaker 3: So charging is our number one issue. Really, finding land
Speaker 3: is great, we can do that, but getting the energy
Speaker 3: out and to your point, there's a lot of attention
Speaker 3: being paid to EV networks right now that aren't necessarily succeeding.
Speaker 2: Do you actually have to be connected to the grid
Speaker 2: in order to charge? Could you create a sort of
Speaker 2: self contained off the grid landing area that use it
Speaker 2: renewable energy?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, So we use about one or two megawatts of
Speaker 3: energy and you can get that from five to ten
Speaker 3: acres of solar.
Speaker 1: Okay, So there is.
Speaker 3: A way that we can do with solar. We can
Speaker 3: store it exect in store with the battery and then
Speaker 3: we can exactly use it for the peak when or
Speaker 3: the demand when they land and need it.
Speaker 1: But you can't just rely on that alone, or can you?
Speaker 3: We could do that. I mean there's still grid connection
Speaker 3: to most places.
Speaker 2: In Arizona or yeah, you know, I don't know parts
Speaker 2: of California.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, So how do you see kind of this
Speaker 1: building out and what's the cost involved? Like, how do
Speaker 1: you do it? Is a public private partner, Like how
Speaker 1: does it all get done?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So the first network of twelve that we have
Speaker 3: in Upstate New York is a mix of different use cases.
Speaker 3: So we have agriculture, we have entertainment and casino, We
Speaker 3: have existing airports. We also have some private public private
Speaker 3: partnerships going on with communities for like medical purposes and
Speaker 3: first responders. So there's a whole range of uses.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: A lot of the vertiports that you see right now,
Speaker 3: they're very fancy. They're a column ZahaHadid buildings right Like,
Speaker 3: they're amazing and futuristic, and they cost a lot of money. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we're going to build two thousand of these, so we're
Speaker 3: going to not make them cost a lot of money.
Speaker 3: And how we're going to do that is because they're many,
Speaker 3: they're very small, they're micro, they're about you know, an
Speaker 3: acre and a half is the minimum space we need,
Speaker 3: and we're going to put so many of them out
Speaker 3: there in two thousand and not all of them will
Speaker 3: have charging, but by having such a dense network, we'll
Speaker 3: be able to guarantee landing spaces and charging within thirty
Speaker 3: minutes of any spot you are.
Speaker 2: So, I think about air traffic control in a situation
Speaker 2: such as this, and we spend a lot of time
Speaker 2: over the past few years talking about shortages of air
Speaker 2: traffic controllers. If we're sending more of vehicles into the air,
Speaker 2: there's more of a need for air traffic controllers. How
Speaker 2: does that factor into the estimate for how these things
Speaker 2: are going to be filling the skies?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, air traffic control is really overwhelmed right now
Speaker 3: with traditional flight. But because of the altitude that these
Speaker 3: craft fly in, it's a different It's a different altitude
Speaker 3: and it's different wavelength for communications, so they do not
Speaker 3: have to use the existing air traffic control systems. There's
Speaker 3: a company, a nonprofit in Syracuse called New Air that
Speaker 3: is working on having all the demand for the airspace
Speaker 3: for heavy drones and evytalls. So it's going to be
Speaker 3: a completely different airspace.
Speaker 1: Right, But you still have to have some coordination, don't you,
Speaker 1: because eventually even those that are flying much higher have
Speaker 1: to come down.
Speaker 3: Absolutely absolutely, and when they are near airports or towered airports,
Speaker 3: they still have to communicate with a tower and air
Speaker 3: traffic control like normal mine. Because my locations are mostly rural,
Speaker 3: very remote, they're not having the same conflict they're in
Speaker 3: general airspace. But also the reason, one of the reasons
Speaker 3: that we chose the Mohawk Valley upstate New York is
Speaker 3: because this company, New Air, has one thousand miles of
Speaker 3: air space that they're already working in, so there's drones
Speaker 3: and all kinds of different things flying there already.
Speaker 2: The real estate agreements that you have in place, what
Speaker 2: do they look like.
Speaker 3: So we do two different types of real estate agreements,
Speaker 3: but what we're pushing for right now is just options.
Speaker 3: So we're not leasing and we're not buying the property.
Speaker 3: We're getting an option. It's much like a cell tower.
Speaker 3: So in essence, we will take on then the feasibility studies,
Speaker 3: the engineering, the build, will finance the equipment for the owner,
Speaker 3: and once we're operating, then we'll share the revenue with them.
Speaker 1: So it's been how much a month or so since
Speaker 1: we've talked. Yeah, what's the biggest change in that timeframe?
Speaker 3: The biggest change in the last month. There's been two.
Speaker 3: But one is that everybody's stopped focusing on individual vertiports
Speaker 3: and started talking about the network. Which is really key
Speaker 3: for especially EV tolls, is you can't just go from
Speaker 3: two points. It gets a little boring, right, you have
Speaker 3: to have a lot of locations.
Speaker 2: I need one that goes from home in brook Yeah,
Speaker 2: seven thirty one Lexington Avenue, Okay, in midtown Manhattan, dude,
Speaker 2: you know, just South Brooklyn a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe, yeah, you know, I mean, what are you
Speaker 1: envision that? Like, we just got like fifteen seconds where
Speaker 1: what's the what's the view you think? I don't know?
Speaker 1: Is it five years, ten years?
Speaker 3: What's the vision five years from now? I believe everybody
Speaker 3: would have got lose tribeline.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: That's very cool. So first WEMO, Yeah, this has people.
Speaker 1: This has people fee a little bit better. Close my
Speaker 1: eyes in amoth.
Speaker 2: Lisa Right, founder and CEO of Landings, running us here
Speaker 2: at the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio