Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. I'm about to step
Speaker 1: into a flying taxi, and if that's not radical enough
Speaker 1: for you, this one has no pilot.
Speaker 2: That's Bloomberg reporter Colum Murphy. He's based in Beijing, and
Speaker 2: he volunteered to go on a test flight in a
Speaker 2: test model of a flying taxi in the southern Chinese
Speaker 2: city of Guangzhou.
Speaker 1: Fasten your okay, I'm just gonna fasten the seatbelts.
Speaker 3: In the air.
Speaker 1: Please do not touch the door. Okay, I got it,
Speaker 1: Thank you. So I'm buckled in and we're just about
Speaker 1: to take off. I can't believe I'm doing this and
Speaker 1: that there's nobody flying this.
Speaker 2: Column. Did not touch the door as instructed and tried
Speaker 2: to stay calm as the machine showed one hundred feet
Speaker 2: up into the air.
Speaker 1: Out in the windows.
Speaker 2: The prototype vehicle Column Rodin was designed by China based
Speaker 2: e Hang Holdings, and it could become the world's first
Speaker 2: commercially operating flying taxi as soon as this year.
Speaker 3: It's here and it's now, and it's probably a lot
Speaker 3: earlier than people have any idea about it.
Speaker 2: That's Angus Whitley, a Bloomberg Global Business reporter based in Sydney.
Speaker 2: He says that right now, all over the world, transportation
Speaker 2: companies are racing to put driverless cars into the sky.
Speaker 2: Billions of dollars in investments and venture capital have fueled
Speaker 2: the technology up to this point, and companies like e
Speaker 2: Hang have started to prove the concept. But now comes
Speaker 2: the hard part, tackling the regulatory and logistical hurdles standing
Speaker 2: in the way of making flying taxi fleets commercially viable.
Speaker 2: And it turns out where in the world these businesses
Speaker 2: are operating could play a critical role in who takes
Speaker 2: off first. Here's Colum again.
Speaker 1: It's a mode of transport that has yet to take off,
Speaker 1: but by some estimates, could be worth as much as
Speaker 1: one trillion dollars by twenty forty.
Speaker 2: This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah
Speaker 2: Holder today on the show the flying Taxi Companies that
Speaker 2: are determined to turn what was once a fantasy into
Speaker 2: our transportation reality, our own column. Murphy is officially one
Speaker 2: of the first people on Earth to try out a
Speaker 2: flying taxi. He agreed to get on a call with
Speaker 2: me and share what the experience was like.
Speaker 1: It's god like this oval shaped cabin and with a
Speaker 1: lot of glass, which I imagine is to enhance or
Speaker 1: maximize the views that you can get once you're flying.
Speaker 1: So it's a bit like a chopper helicopter, but the
Speaker 1: scale is much much smaller. What's particularly unusual about it
Speaker 1: is that it has eight arms, and each arm has
Speaker 1: two sets of rotators. So when you look at it
Speaker 1: from the ground and it's up in the air flying,
Speaker 1: it really filled me with a sense of an eerie feeling,
Speaker 1: if you will, because it just looks like an insect
Speaker 1: chopping its way through the sky. A fighter, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: But the manufacturers rely or stress that it's these eight
Speaker 1: arms and the sixteen rotators that are at the core
Speaker 1: of its safety, and it's sort of fail proof ability
Speaker 1: to fly and deal with any circumstance that comes its way.
Speaker 2: I'd understand if this isn't what you pictured when we
Speaker 2: first said flying taxi. Angus Whitley, Bloomberg's Global business reporter,
Speaker 2: had his own frames of reference.
Speaker 3: My favorite flying cars are actually in the James Bond franchises,
Speaker 3: just because they are so simple and so ludicrous. Or
Speaker 3: first one probably in The Man with the Golden Garn
Speaker 3: in the seventies and they just put wings on a
Speaker 3: normal car and it takes off.
Speaker 2: It's as easy as that.
Speaker 1: It's as easy as that.
Speaker 3: Yes, And I suppose the point when you look at
Speaker 3: these films is there've been a fiction of our imagination
Speaker 3: for decades and decades. They've been held up as this
Speaker 3: sort of goal and fantasy, and if you think about it, now,
Speaker 3: this reality has arrived, and in many senses it's totally
Speaker 3: different from all the sort of variance we've seen on
Speaker 3: the screen in the last few decades.
Speaker 2: E Hang Holding's white hovering insect like contraption is one
Speaker 2: example of this new kind of aircraft. It's meant for
Speaker 2: short trips.
Speaker 3: It's essentially a drone. It's electric, it's battery powered. It
Speaker 3: recharges in a couple of hours, and it buzzes around.
Speaker 3: It's a short distance electric drone. Its range is pretty small.
Speaker 3: It's twenty miles. It can fly at less than one
Speaker 3: hundred miles an hour. But it's a short distance little thing.
Speaker 3: And it looks like a little car cockpit if you like.
Speaker 3: There's no seat for a pilot, but there's a flat
Speaker 3: screen in the front tells you all the critical information
Speaker 3: about the flight.
Speaker 2: China's e Hang Holdings is just one of the companies
Speaker 2: piloting what they hope could become the uber of the future.
Speaker 2: There's something of a space race underway among flying taxi makers,
Speaker 2: and each model has its own design and fuel.
Speaker 3: This is just a burgeoning emerging industry that has more
Speaker 3: than two dozen really serious EV tour makers and we
Speaker 3: say ev TOLL that's it stands for electric vertical takeoff
Speaker 3: and landing.
Speaker 2: Are we seeing traditional airplane makers and car makers try
Speaker 2: to invest in autonomous flying vehicles as well?
Speaker 3: Of course, you have the old aviation of like the
Speaker 3: Old Guard, and that's Boeing and Airbus. Boeing's fully owned
Speaker 3: business called Whisk is making an electric aircraft that can
Speaker 3: carry four passengers with no pilot, and they're planning to
Speaker 3: launch that before the decade is out, before twenty thirty.
Speaker 3: Airbos also has its own variant, Embra, the Brazilian aircraft manufacturer.
Speaker 3: So you have this old Guard, and then you have
Speaker 3: this legion of upstarts like Jobie and Archer and e Haang.
Speaker 3: They're really just emerged as these special manufacturers. And then
Speaker 3: you have this huge range of established names from the
Speaker 3: car industry. So you have Hyundai, there's Stilantis, there's Toyota,
Speaker 3: there's even Tencent, China's Tencent like technology makers, so that
Speaker 3: they're drawing all this manufacturing know how, this technology know
Speaker 3: how car industry expertise along with this huge, big stock
Speaker 3: of aviation expertise and likes of Boeing and Airs, and
Speaker 3: it's not clear who the winners are going to be.
Speaker 2: Winning in this context means getting this very new technology right,
Speaker 2: but it also means getting it to market and turning
Speaker 2: flying taxis into a viable business.
Speaker 3: We've had one hundred years of air travel evolve. We've
Speaker 3: had the jet era, and now we're into this revere
Speaker 3: of urban air mobility or advanced air mobility. If you
Speaker 3: think about what's happened in the jet era, we've boiled
Speaker 3: down to essentially Giopoli, didn't we We had Boeing an
Speaker 3: air bus, and now almost I think we'll get a
Speaker 3: filtering out in the same way. We have dozens and
Speaker 3: dozens of players vying to enter this space, and it's
Speaker 3: not clear that many of them will survive. And the
Speaker 3: prize if we can break through this frontier is by
Speaker 3: some estimates just enormous. And if you look at estimates
Speaker 3: by Morgan Stanley. For instance, this broad market for urban
Speaker 3: air mobility, which includes electric passenger aircraft flying taxis, of
Speaker 3: them without a pilot, some with, is going to be
Speaker 3: worth one trillion dollars by twenty forty, So that's the
Speaker 3: estimated prize.
Speaker 2: The prize is so huge in part because these pilotless
Speaker 2: aircraft's promise to solve a major urban problem.
Speaker 3: There are some use cases if you like, that are
Speaker 3: often cited. The first one is flying taxis are a
Speaker 3: sort of solution to chronic congestion that we're seeing around
Speaker 3: the world in huge big metropolis is from Tokyo to
Speaker 3: New York to London to Southeast Asia.
Speaker 2: Need to get to your board meeting downtown, but traffic
Speaker 2: is at a standstill. Flying taxi want to go to
Speaker 2: the football playoffs, but parking is a nightmare. Flying taxi
Speaker 2: need to catch your flight, but the highways shut down
Speaker 2: flying taxi.
Speaker 3: Then there's the kind of intercity shuttle use case. And
Speaker 3: then there's that sort of tourism case which we're seeing
Speaker 3: emerging that we see e Haang try and capitalize on
Speaker 3: in China as a way of taking tourist rides. Perhaps
Speaker 3: supplanting the sort of helicopter trips, making them more affordable,
Speaker 3: making them shorter, making them autonomous, And there are thousands
Speaker 3: of locations and Ehang's eyes that could support that user case.
Speaker 3: These flying taxis are going to at some point going
Speaker 3: to have to integrate in the way that airlines travel
Speaker 3: around the world as well. So the idea is that
Speaker 3: perhaps these flying taxis could connect to larger airports and
Speaker 3: you might take a flying taxi from downtown Manhattan up
Speaker 3: to the JFK or LaGuardia and jump on a plane,
Speaker 3: a conventional aircraft somewhere else. So it's that's why a
Speaker 3: lot of the orders for these electric taxis come from
Speaker 3: actual airlines themselves.
Speaker 2: So flying taxis could be lean, green traffic avoiding machines,
Speaker 2: at least that's what these transportation companies hope. But there
Speaker 2: are a few big things standing in the way of liftoff,
Speaker 2: including economics, timing, and red tape.
Speaker 1: All that.
Speaker 2: In a moment, flying taxis, they're the hot new frontier
Speaker 2: in air transportation, and they're supposedly just around the corner.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg reporter Angus Whitley, Again.
Speaker 3: We're really approaching the reality here. We're seeing EHang launching
Speaker 3: this year, We're going to see Jobian Archer launching next year.
Speaker 2: For investors in the industry, this means payoff may finally
Speaker 2: be near after years of waiting. Flying taxi companies started
Speaker 2: to gain traction during a heady moment for the global economy.
Speaker 2: At the time. There were a lot of investors with
Speaker 2: a lot of money to throw around, and they were
Speaker 2: willing to invest it with companies that required a lot
Speaker 2: of upfront cash even if they didn't have the most
Speaker 2: airtight business plan. Interest rates were near zero, unborrowing was
Speaker 2: very cheap. These were the perfects to build a business
Speaker 2: that was highly expensive and highly speculative like flying taxis.
Speaker 3: But the days of cheap money are over. We're seeing
Speaker 3: funding not drying up, but decreasing at.
Speaker 2: Least with interest rates back up. Investors are getting more
Speaker 2: risk averse, and that poses a challenge for flying taxi
Speaker 2: companies who might have the technology down but will still
Speaker 2: need to navigate logistical hurdles like aviation regulation, certification, liability.
Speaker 3: And they're going to have to step up in terms
Speaker 3: of producing these things. So they're going to have to
Speaker 3: find a way of not just getting these things certified
Speaker 3: but being produced at enough scale to make money. So
Speaker 3: that this is a scale game. You need to have
Speaker 3: these things produced at a level that we haven't really
Speaker 3: seen since the Second World War. Archer, for instance, wants
Speaker 3: to produce ultimately more aircraft a year than Boeing produced
Speaker 3: last year.
Speaker 2: A scale game, basically, flying tax companies need to find
Speaker 2: a way to make enough of them to launch a
Speaker 2: viable business. The more taxis they make, the cheaper the
Speaker 2: cost for each new taxi. The cheaper the cost of
Speaker 2: each taxi, the less they need to charge customers per ride,
Speaker 2: and the less they charge per ride, the more people
Speaker 2: who are likely to actually try this out.
Speaker 3: It's certainly a moment and also I think in the
Speaker 3: next few years we're going to see who is emerging
Speaker 3: as winners and losers, and there will be people who
Speaker 3: lose a lot of money along the line.
Speaker 2: For any of these companies to have any chance at success,
Speaker 2: Angus says, they'll need to win over regulators.
Speaker 3: It is a global game. For instance, if you're a
Speaker 3: flying taxi manufacturer and you have sign off from the FAA,
Speaker 3: then you'll be able to access other markets around the
Speaker 3: world as well, and jurisdictions like Australia. They take their
Speaker 3: nod from the FAA in terms of certification and improving flights.
Speaker 3: It's an important step to being certified and that will
Speaker 3: open doors into other markets and we'll see the likes
Speaker 3: of joby an Archer and e Hag enter other markets
Speaker 3: as well, for example the Middle East and Europe. So
Speaker 3: it's not a single country game.
Speaker 2: Getting those rubber stamps is not going to happen overnight,
Speaker 2: and that's part of the reason why years of investment
Speaker 2: haven't paid off just yet. It's worth pointing out though,
Speaker 2: that some regulatory environments will be easier to navigate than others.
Speaker 2: That's in part why Colums e Hang Holding's test flight
Speaker 2: was possible and why the e Hang taxi business could
Speaker 2: take off in China sooner than competitors based elsewhere.
Speaker 3: EHang already has a pilotless aircraft that can carry two
Speaker 3: passengers certified by the regulator, so they're pushing ahead towards
Speaker 3: commercial launch. By the end of this year, they would
Speaker 3: have bragging rights over potentially emerging as the first autonomous
Speaker 3: commercial flying taxi in the world. But it's interesting how
Speaker 3: these things are being regulated. The China Civil Aviage and
Speaker 3: regulator has cleared that it's partly because Chinese policy has
Speaker 3: identified these kind of areas as a policy lever to
Speaker 3: develop what they call a sort of low altitude economy,
Speaker 3: other regulators are taking a bit more time. I'm not
Speaker 3: suggesting that China's regulators necessarily less onerous when it comes
Speaker 3: to certifying aircraft, but it's fair to say that power
Speaker 3: is more centralized in China, which allows sort of policy
Speaker 3: levers to be pulled at all levels to achieve a goal.
Speaker 3: So if you look at Ehang's aircraft, it has a
Speaker 3: certification from the regulator to fly and to go into
Speaker 3: mass production. And once you get those kind of badges,
Speaker 3: then orders start coming in and right on queue. We've
Speaker 3: had local tourism entities order e Hag aircraft in their hundreds.
Speaker 2: So anders, realistically, how soon could I ella flying taxi?
Speaker 3: I think this is the picture they would like you
Speaker 3: to see in your mind, walking out the door in
Speaker 3: Haling a flying taxi. In reality, that is some way off.
Speaker 3: I think that that is years away, but you could
Speaker 3: next year. You could potentially take a trip to your
Speaker 3: local vertaport as they call it, and take a flight
Speaker 3: to the airport, perhaps not in the price of an uber,
Speaker 3: but you know, as a special treat.
Speaker 2: Of course, one person's treat is another person's terror. And
Speaker 2: I wanted to know on which side of the spectrum
Speaker 2: column had landed. After his two minute test ride.
Speaker 1: It feels very stable, very secure. I think we're going
Speaker 1: back down now. See that we're making no sense. I
Speaker 1: actually did have another opportunity to take one, and that
Speaker 1: was they offered us three different slots, and I felt
Speaker 1: that after the first one, I had basically enjoy the experience,
Speaker 1: had survived the experience, but I wasn't particularly keen or
Speaker 1: anxious to jump in and go up again.
Speaker 2: To be honest, this is the big take from Bloomberg News.
Speaker 2: I'm Sarah Holder. This episode was produced by Jessica Beck,
Speaker 2: Naomi and Audrianna Tapia. It was mixed by Rishi Bajakol
Speaker 2: and fact checked by Eddie Dwan. It was edited by
Speaker 2: Stacy Vennick Smith and Rebecca Greenfield. Our senior producers are
Speaker 2: Kim Gettleson and Naomi Shaven, who also edited this episode.
Speaker 2: Our senior editor is Elizabeth Hanso. Nicole beemsterbor is. Our
Speaker 2: executive producer Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. If
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Speaker 2: for the US holiday. We'll be back on Tuesday.