On the way to the vertiport
This is the March 21, 2023 edition of the Opportunity Miami newsletter written by Suzette Laboy, which we send every Tuesday. Click here to subscribe to get our weekly updates in your inbox.
Featured Content
Interview: The future of electric air mobility
Watch our interview with Matthew Land of Eve Air Mobility
Climate Tech Meetup: Opportunity Miami x Miami-Dade County
Register here to learn more about our energy needs and solutions at our sixth meetup this Friday at Future of Cities
Imagine a future where getting from Miami International Airport to Miami Beach would take less than ten minutes. And the trip would be a much cleaner and quieter experience compared to being on the road.
That’s the vision of Eve Air Mobility, one of the electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle (or eVTOL) companies focused on taking four passengers on short trips in major cities.
The idea is not to compete with other forms of transportation but to complement them. “We need to make sure that this is seamlessly integrated into other forms of transportation,” said Matthew Land, who leads Eve’s government relations and public policy.
Watch our latest Opportunity Miami Interview with Land here.
Watch the 13-minute interview on YouTube or listen on Apple or Spotify
Eve expects to be certified by 2025, with commercial operations beginning the following year. The market will grow quickly and scale toward high-frequency operations within a decade, Land explained.
For Miami-Dade County, that signals a need for an integrated ecosystem of regulations, technologies, and infrastructure to support safe and efficient operations. “The conversations need to happen out in the public,” Land said, adding that Eve is already working on a Miami-Dade County Urban Air Mobility blueprint to engage with the community, different departments, and public-private stakeholders to figure out what needs to be put into place before eVTOLs can become a reality. Eve is collaborating with the Miami-Dade Transportation Planning Organization on a final report expected to be released within a few months.
The county is “certainly well on the path towards preparing for eVTOL operations in the coming future,” Land said.
As eVTOL companies wait for federal regulations, states and cities are already sponsoring efforts to make aviation mobility a safer transportation option and one available sooner rather than later.
By adapting to eVTOLs, Land noted that the county would also be able to diversify the local economy with new sources of revenue, attract green infrastructure investment, and accelerate the decarbonization of the transportation system — all while creating new green jobs. For that to happen, there would need to be numerous vertiports — where the eVTOLs would take off and land from — stationed across Miami-Dade County. Vertiports would help alleviate traffic congestion, avoid straining existing road infrastructure, and reduce transportation emissions.
Although Eve is a subsidiary of the Brazilian aerospace manufacturer Embraer, its global headquarters are now in Melbourne, Florida. Eve’s portfolio of Urban Air Mobility (or UAM) products includes its four-passenger design eVTOL, the certification of eVTOLs, support services such as maintenance and operator training, and the creation of urban air traffic management solutions.
“The idea is to support this progression to the air across the industry,” Land said.
To learn more about our energy needs and solutions, join us for our sixth Opportunity Miami x Miami-Dade County Climate Tech Meetup this Friday. Register here.
Register for the meetup here
As always, we would love to hear from you. What do you see in the future of transportation and mobility in Miami? You can hit reply or email us at next@opportunity.miami.
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Suzette
