Are Indian Cities Ready For Flying eTaxis?

The Chennai-based ePlane Company, which provides electrically-operated air taxis for intra-city commutes, announced last week that it has raised $ 5 million in seed funding. The company, founded by Prof Satyanarayanan Chakravarthy with Pranjal, one of his engineering students at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, said it would use the funds to hire top talent, conduct R&D and continue to work for air-worthiness certification for its pollution-free small aircraft. An analysis conducted on the business of urban air mobility and electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (VETO) by JP Morgan Securities LLC describes the sectors as “nascent, with big potential”. These markets, it says, can change the way people travel – but they are, for the most part, new markets with a lot to prove.  US-based Dr Aravind Melligeri, Chairman & CEO of Aequs Inc which manufactures about 3,000 different types of products at its aerospace facility in Belgavi, Karnataka for aircraft makers and others – was too far ahead of his time for small aeroplanes which he had launched for personal use more than a decade ago. “The winner takes the most in this business,” he says. “When the dust settles in this space, we will have one or two left globally and several in the graveyard.”