Vertical Mobility

The Future of
Vertical Mobility
Sizing the market for passenger,
inspection, and goods services until 2035
A Porsche Consulting study

Note to the reader

Flying promises a very special and seemingly boundlessform of freedom. People have always dreamt of taking off andmoving through the air. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), theItalian artist, engineer, and natural philosopher, studied birds for
ideas on how to design flying machines. His results used muscle power for propulsion.
Vertical mobility, which includes vertical take-off and landing(VTOL) abilities, played a role even in da Vinci’s time. Around1490 he sketched an aircraft with an aerial screw, which is aprecursor to today’s helicopters. He called his invention the helix
pteron, or “spiraling wing”. The Chinese had already applied thisprinciple of upward motion some 2,500 years before to a toy inthe form of a vertically ascending top.
Da Vinci was not able to put his invention into practice. He
lacked lightweight and stable materials. Nor was a sufficiently
powerful drive system available at the time. Many designers subsequently attempted to produce rotary-wing aircraft.
It was not until much later, in 1901, that the first helicopterrose into the air above Berlin. Today, more than a century later,
rotorcraft machines are acquiring new significance. As smallscale, versatile drones, they could play an important role as links
between different modes of connected, future-oriented transportation–whether as four-seat aerial taxis, delivery vehicles, orfor inspection purposes.

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

Why are small aircraft of this type attracting serious attention?
The aviation industry has undergone enormous development.
Wide-body planes can carry as many as 850 passengers. Flying throughout the world is a routine practice. But only now
are future-oriented technologies making it possible for shortdistance connections to utilize the airspace, above large cities
in particular.
Environmentally friendly electric propulsion systems, highperformance batteries with extremely short charging times,
minimal spatial requirements for taking off and landing, highspeed computers, and big data have laid the foundation for
revolutionary new applications. We are entering an era in which
everyone will be able to operate aircraft. Even without a pilot’s
license. Because drones can be remote-controlled. In their role aspilots, passengers need do little more than select a destination.
All new developments first need to be accepted, of course.
Reservations and concerns are natural human reactions tomajor changes. Aware of these responses, the authors of thestudy “The Future of Vertical Mobility” have addressed them.
Yet they are also certain that superior technology will encompass the necessary safety and security features to convincingly
eliminate reservations and concerns. The study therefore takes
a thorough and comprehensive approach in its analysis of thefeasibility of vertical mobility.

02

At a Glance
Vertical mobility offers mankind a serious shot at turning the dream of flying into a reality foreveryone, and inspection, goods, and passenger services have the potential to become a global market worth $74 billion by 2035.
After first field tests, we expect electric passenger drones or
eVTOL aircraft (short for electric vertical take-off and landing)to start providing commercial mobility services in 2025. In justseven years from now, the first drone air taxis will lift off, primarily in big cities around the world. They will mostly connect

airports and city centers, offering short transfer flights for business travelers. Within one decade after that, by 2035, drones
could already be servicing their own elaborate passenger network with about 23,000 aircraft plying major routes and creating a market worth $32 billion (fig. 1).

Passenger drones
Starting in 2025

Electric VTOL in 2035

Passenger market 2035*

Air taxis

23,000 units

32 billion* Intracity and city-to-city
Figure 1. Air taxis for everyone: the timeframe for commercial passenger drones.

If this vision is to become reality, the four key elements of theeVTOL ecosystem have to be debated, designed, and developed in the coming years: the underlying technology, theregulatory framework, social acceptance, and the necessary
infrastructure. Even though much points to a future in which
vertical mobility will elevate personal transportation to the third
dimension, in its current state it is a venture fraught with significant risks.
Vertical mobility will only be one piece in the larger puzzle ofurban transport because it has a limited range of applications
and can typically beat other modes of transportation, such as
taxis, at distances of 20 kilometers or more.1 This minimum
range is almost twice as long as the average urban journey of
11 kilometers (1). Still, vertical mobility holds promise in relieving some pressure from particularly congested urban hot spots– but only some. If one tried to solve all traffic problems on the
ground by moving into the air, the myriad take-off and landing
spots would become the new choke points.

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

can take off and land anywhere are not a realistic scenario forthe mid-term future. Even a megacity with five to ten million
inhabitants will have no more than 1,000 passenger drones inoperation by 2035. Passenger drones will for some time remaina hub-to-hub travel option that depends on other modes oftransportation, rather than an end-to-end solution.
Looking at unmanned eVTOL aircraft, the market for inspection
drones will grow to $34 billion and 21.5 million active units by
2035, complemented by the market for goods-and-delivery
drones at $4 billion and 125,000 units. Inspection drones arein use today, and goods drones are already being tested aroundthe world. The market for supporting services around inspection, goods, and passenger drones will reach another $4 billion
by 2035.
To be sure, the time for vertical mobility has come. The only
questions are how big the market will be and how fast it will
evolve. This is the focus of the following report.

There is no need to worry that the skies will be clogged withdrones, however, since passenger drones and flying cars that
1 This report differentiates between intracity and city-to-city applications since various travel distances require different technical concepts.
Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

03Preface

D is
tan
ce
:3
0

Air taxi
Airport to the city

km

as

th

s
flie
row
c
e

MunichΏΏ Flight time: 10 minutes
ΏΏ Price: ~€100 / ~$123
ΏΏ Travel speed: ~200 km/h

Munich airport

Marienplatz, Munich (city center)

Figure 2. Air taxis are available for fast connections between airports and cities: in Munich,for example, the fastest connection would take only ten minutes.

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

This report provides a strategic overview of a more detailed analysis and aims to accomplish
three goals:
01 Add a fact-based foundation to the hype around verticalmobility, which inspires the public’s imagination as the firstpassenger drones are tested and details of the Uber Elevate air
taxi service emerge (2).
02 Offer pragmatic and neutral analysis following our mis-sion to “think strategically and act pragmatically.”
03 Share our findings with the ecosystem of companies

We want to answer three key questions raised by
the new mobility landscape:ΏΏ What is the market potential in 2035?
ΏΏ What are basic, conservative, and progressive
market scenarios to get there?
ΏΏ What are the opportunities for customers,
cities, manufacturers, operators, andand startups, city governments, and the public, as well as
aerospace and other regulatory entities.

investors?
Porsche Consulting will do its part to continuously
observe the vertical mobility space.

The following pages will identify and assess the drivers andbarriers defining the vertical mobility ecosystem and describe
the most likely development paths and scenarios. It represents
a market-based model grounded in today’s mobility patterns
and current market predictions. We focused on electricallypropelled aircraft and excluded military applications.

The authors want to thank the team, external partners, andproject sponsors who made this report possible. Special
thanks go to our key partner, the German Aerospace Center(Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, DLR).

This report brings together the expertise and input of Porsche
Consulting and 62 internationally renowned experts from thedomains of aerospace, technology, and automotive.

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

We look forward to hearing your thoughts, comments, andquestions to keep the debate around vertical mobility going.

04

Table of Contents
At a Glance03

Preface04

1 The Ecosystem

06

2 The Benefits of Vertical Mobility

13

3 The Timeline: A Journey to Zero-emission Flying Taxis

16

4 Sizing Up the Market

19

5 Seizing the Opportunity of Vertical Mobility

29

Appendix

32

Authors, Partners, and Sponsors

34

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility05

1 The Ecosystem
Taking flight has always fueled human imagination and fascinated artists as well as tinkerers,
but only recently have technological innovations–from electric propulsion systems to artificial
intelligence and communications networks–opened a window into what will be possible in thenear future.
Vertical mobility for everyone is no longer a fantasy or wishful thinking but is making steady progress in research labs
and companies around the world. It is becoming a piece inthe ever-changing puzzle called mobility. Novel ride-hailingand ride-sharing services on the ground have demonstrated
that there are new ways to transport goods and people more
efficiently and more economically. We need to take a moredetailed look at vertical mobility and its proper role in an integrated and seamless mobility ecosystem to better understand three things: the utility for consumers, the challenges
ahead for regulatory authorities, and the market opportunities
for investors and enterprises.

Vertical mobility will become an integral part of overall urban
mobility if it is connected with first- and last-mile modes oftransport, as illustrated in figure 3. Passenger drones can play
an important role here because they are fast and available on
demand. They are an attractive and competitive way to coverdistances of 20 kilometers or more since they require relatively few infrastructure investments and can service secondary and tertiary routes. Vertical mobility is also a fast escapefrom clogged routes.

Figure 3. Pieces of an integrated puzzle: air taxis can make a significant contribution to urban transport networks.

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Vertical mobility
Public transport
Taxi and car
Soft mode

Graphic: Porsche Consulting06

We analyzed four segments of vertical mobility: inspection,
goods, and passenger drones as well as drone-related services. Unmanned inspection drones help with monitoringand surveying infrastructure or covering events, while goods
drones deliver time-critical wares. Passenger drones satisfy
intracity and longer city-to-city transportation needs. The
fourth segment across these three markets is comprised ofvarious supporting services for drones. Air traffic management (ATM) for manned and unmanned drones alike is a key
foundation for making the mobility ecosystem of the future
reliable, safe, and economically viable.

We have identified 26 relevant vertical mobility services(fig. 4) and more than 70 detailed sub-services. The main
purpose of inspection drones is to gather data, while goods
drones transport goods and deliver parcels. As the nameimplies, passenger drones are designed to transport private
passengers and offer mobility services to the broader public.
Finally, supporting services assist and enable all three major
segments, from operations and maintenance to charging,insurance, and financing.

Vertical mobility services
Inspection

Goods

Passenger

Supporting
servicesΏΏ Hobby drones
ΏΏ Media and entertainmentΏΏ Precision agriculture, farming, and forestry
ΏΏ Inspection and monitoringΏΏ Ad-hoc communication network
ΏΏ Surveying and mappingΏΏ Learning, training, and gathering scientific dataΏΏ Security, law enforcement, and people searchΏΏ Cultivation and fertilization
ΏΏ Maintenance and air handlingΏΏ Last-mile express delivery

ΏΏ Cargo transportation
ΏΏ Delivery network extension (to remote areas)ΏΏ Emergency transport (medicine and organs)ΏΏ Personal eVTOL aircraft ownershipΏΏ eVTOL aircraft rental
ΏΏ On-demand eVTOL air taxi incl. sightseeingΏΏ eVTOL air bus
ΏΏ eVTOL rescue operations

ΏΏ Development and production of eVTOLs
ΏΏ Certification service
ΏΏ Air traffic management services
ΏΏ Drone defense

ΏΏ Maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO)ΏΏ Vertiports-/stops operation, charging, and parking
ΏΏ Insurance and financing

Figure 4. Four clusters with 26 services: the vertical mobility services at a glance.

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

Graphic: Porsche Consulting07

While we analyzed all four service clusters in detail and while
each service cluster presents its own opportunities and challenges, this report will mainly focus on the passenger segment. Nevertheless, aspects such as market data that are
relevant for the overall eVTOL ecosystem will be addressed in
a comprehensive fashion.
For vertical mobility to become a reality, the ecosystem needs
to satisfy requirements across four areas that will otherwise
pose barriers to adoption (fig. 5). First, there are the techni-

cal requirements for the aircraft system itself, including propulsion. Equally important are requirements in the realm ofcertification and law in order to approve, operate, and properly maintain these novel aircraft. Third, there is the crucial
question of social acceptance when it comes to noise, safety,
and the security of users and city residents alike. Both constituencies will determine mass suitability. Infrastructure is
the final important component, as this mode of transportation requires a network of take-off and landing sites as well as
resources for air traffic control, charging, and parking aircraft.

Vertical mobility ecosystem

AircraftsystemCertificationand law

Socialacceptance

Figure 5. From drones to laws and landing pads: the four key realms of the vertical mobility ecosystem.

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Infrastructure

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

08Aircraft system
The design of the aircraft system is critical, and companies
in this field are experimenting with several aerodynamic
concepts. We can distinguish between three major systems (fig. 6). “Multirotor” systems, such as camera drones
or aircraft by the German startup Volocopter, distribute multiple motors around the periphery of the drone to provide
lift. “Lift-and-cruise” concepts, such as the Aurora eVTOL,
combine rotors for lift and fixed wings for forward flight.
Other market entrants, such as Lilium’s eVTOL concept, rely
on “tilt-x” designs in which wings, rotors, and ducts can betilted. Developing and refining the right aerodynamic concept is a key determining factor for making vertical mobility a reality. Each system has its own pros and cons whenit comes to time to market, travel speed, ideal routes, efficiency, and potential market size.

Simplified aerodynamic vertical mobility concepts
Single phase

Dual phase

Transition phase

MULTIROTOR

LIFT AND CRUISE

TILT-XTime to market

Fastest certification

Slower certification

Slowest certification

Travel speed(indicative)~70–120 km/h

~150–200 km/h

~150–300 km/h

RoutesSelectedAll

All

Potential~70% of intracity
0% of city-to-city

100% of intracity
100% of city-to-city

100% of intracity
100% of city-to-city

liftcombination

Figure 6. Faster and further: the three basic aerodynamic concepts for drones, each with pros and cons.

Multirotor, as the name implies, is a rotorcraft with two or
more motors, often arranged in a ring around or atop thecabin. Flight control is accomplished by varying the speedof the individual rotors. Multirotor systems have the twin
advantage of being fairly simple and offering safety throughPorsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

tilt-wing, tilt-rotor, tilt-duct

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

redundancy. On the downside, they are hampered by lower
travel speed as well as limitations in weight and range due
to significantly lower efficiency. Initial multirotor systems,
however, have a low risk profile and will help define future
standards in a step-by-step process.

09

eVTOL compared
to a helicopter
The second type of aircraft system iscomprised of various hybrid models, allwith separate drive trains for the liftand-cruise flight phases. The hybrid
model allows them to take advantageof the respective properties of fixedwing and rotor aircraft. Wings give themlonger range, while rotors enable themto vertically take off and land more
efficiently and maintain a higher airspeed. The basic technologies of bothelements are already available, and theoverall complexity of hybrid models isin the middle range, depending on aparticular system’s design. Next-generation hybrid drones can be considered the second phase in eVTOL aircraft
development as they offer increased
speed and efficiency. They provide moretime savings and lower operationalcosts, two key drivers for commercial
success in comparison to other modesof transportation.
And finally, there are tilt-x concepts
with wings and rotors or ducts, all ofwhich can be tilted. Since they have rotating components that need to reliably
and safely handle the transition fromthe lift to the cruise phase, the complexity of tilt-x systems is significantly
higher. By design, tilting wings, tilting
rotors, or tilting ducts carry a higher riskof a single point of failure. As such, theunderlying technology cannot currently
be considered mature enough to handle passenger transport under critical
weather conditions and requires further
development to satisfy safety requirements. At the same time, Tilt-x aircraft
can cover long distances at high speed
and therefore have clear potential formobility services.
Regardless of the particular system,eVTOL aircraft will be an improvement.
Even in this technological day and age,vertical mobility has remained the exclusive domain of the wealthy. Helicopters are not only expensive but also
noisy and unsafe compared to othermodes of transportation. It is also notavailable to the average consumer as
an on-demand option. Compared to a
traditional helicopter, an electric passenger drone is by orders of magnitudequieter, more reliable, safer, and less expensive (fig. 7).
Batteries are the key component of any
passenger drone system, with energy
density acting as both the biggest constraint and most important driver for
their future development.

4xquieter

15xhigher reliability
realibility

2x
safer

10x

less expensive
Figure 7. Quiet, reliable, safe, and inexpensive:the main advantages of eVTOL over conventionalhelicopters.
Graphic: Porsche Consulting

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

10Certification and law
Development
organization approvalStarting and landing
infrastructure approvaleVTOL certification
specificationTypecertification

Pilot
license

Production
organization approvalContinuous
airworthiness

Maintenanceorganization approval

Airworthinesscertificate
Operation
certification

Figure 8. Safety first: overview of certification requirements for drones.

We expect commercial passenger transport to remain a highly regulated market that will remain under the guidance of thetwo globally preeminent regulatory agencies: the FAA in the
US and EASA in Europe. Looking at the regulatory and legal requirements, one can differentiate between certification of theaircraft development organization, the aircraft itself, the aircraft
production, the operations, the service, and the pilot license(fig. 8). The system–whether for a helicopter or another typeof aircraft–determines which regulations currently apply. For
instance, the European standards for small rotorcraft or lightsport airplanes (e.g., CS-23, CS-27, or CS-LSA) will be used
to certify drones for testing; the equivalent organizational standards are Part 21J&G, 145, M, and Part OPS (see appendix).
However they will not be directly applicable for commercial
eVTOL certifications.
Existent certification standards for inspection and goods
drones as well as active aviation standards can serve as thebasis for certifying passenger drones. We expect these different certification standards to be a starting point for developing and certifying the various aerodynamic concepts shown.
Authorities are ready for talks to develop new certification

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

standards and provide areas in which to test them. There arealso enough local opportunities around the world to test andcertify new drones. It is worth keeping in mind that certification in the aviation world is usually an incremental, step-bystep process–and for good reason. Starting with existent andstable systems, incremental certification will address distributed electric propulsion (DEP) and, later, “sense-and-avoid”
technologies and device autonomy.
Further legal issues revolve around airspace and traffic management. How will eVTOL aircraft deal with various weather
conditions and how will they sense and avoid other aircraft?
Will they use centralized or decentralized communication
channels? How will the airspace of tomorrow be structured toaccommodate regular aviation and drones? One of the drivers
in this regard will be the safety of traditional aircraft, as thenumber of inspection and goods drones will rise into the millions. Today, aircraft safety is already an important topic, as
witnessed by almost daily reports of drone encounters. This
process will also fuel an ongoing debate over the safety risks
and potential misuse of such systems for criminal or terrorist
purposes.

11

Social acceptance

Infrastructure

Getting the public on board to accept and use eVTOL aircraft
will depend on solving several key issues around safety andsecurity concerns, the potential for visual and noise pollution as well as proving that everyone will benefit from thesesystems being integrated into city mobility–not just thewealthy, as with today’s private helicopters.

The crucial component in the success of vertical mobility is theinfrastructure to take off, land, charge, and service a drone aswell as park it in wait for passengers. While there is no shortage of airspace, interfacing with existent transportation is key.
Electric VTOL aircraft will only become a useful component of
tomorrow’s mobility if they are well and thoughtfully integrated
into the overall transport network of a city. From their locationand number to their size, eVTOL landing sites, or vertiports, area determining factor for the ecosystem. A city needs to havesufficient sites for take-off and landing as well as charging, inaddition to the necessary resources to operationalize air traffic control. Finally, urban eVTOL infrastructure has to strike anacceptable balance between benefits and disturbances, suchas defining and zoning the proper use of rooftops.

Experts expect the targeted noise profile of a drone to beabout 65 dBA at 300 feet flight altitude, which registers
at one-fourth the noise emitted by a helicopter. The actual
value will, of course, depend on ambient noise, distance froma drone, its noise characteristics, and maximum noise level.
The overarching goal here is to weigh the personal benefits
against mass suitability and decide how to best reconcile
the increased comfort of travel and transport with the larger
cultural change wrought by passenger drones. The public’s
perceptions and opinions about vertical mobility vary fromcontinent to continent, from country to country, and fromcity to city, covering everything from fear and skepticism tooutright enthusiasm.
We will see the first implementations in locations that are
more open to testing new technology and have quick decision-making processes in place, such as Singapore, Dubai,
and China. Their first implementations and resulting lessons
will shape the perception of safety and security concernsand offer ideas for dealing with visual and noise pollution.

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

Many cities already have heliports and therefore possess thenecessary infrastructure for landing sites. In the first phase, justfive heliports will suffice to create attractive routes. In the next
phase, selected geographies will have up to 40 vertiports as
relatively small take-off and landing sites specifically designed
for passenger drones. In the final phase, megacities with a population of five to ten million or more will have up to 100 suchsites to provide good service coverage.
Infrastructure growth will be driven by the initial build-out
phase and the ensuing stages of expansion and elaboration,
when an increasing number of vertiports service a growingbase of passenger drones. Other components that need to bebuilt are standardized and efficient, such as fast-charging stations and systems for air traffic control (ATC) communications.

122 The Benefits of Vertical Mobility
Vertical mobility has the potential to create wide-ranging social benefits by addressing
all-too-familiar transportation bottlenecks.

V

V

V
Innovative
mobility mode

Fast transportation > 20 km

2nd and 3rd tierconnections

Flexible and easy
to configure

Figure 9. Winning on time, space, and cost: passenger drones will be an integral part of future urban mobility.

Sitting in traffic is a global phenomenon that comes withserious negative consequences in terms of time wasted,
increased fuel consumption, higher emissions, and loss ofproperty and human life. The infrastructure provided by
the world’s cities to channel the ever-growing traffic flows
has in many cases reached its limit or is about to, often due
to a lack of funding, available space, or both. It has simply
become too costly and complicated to add new roads andhighways, and more roadways also have a negative impact
on residents’ quality of life.
Increasing urban populations therefore face the prospect ofspending more and more time en route. By most recent estimates, the average inhabitant of Los Angeles loses approximately 102 hours a year sitting in traffic jams, followed by
Moscow and New York with 91 hours, and São Paulo with
86 hours. Munich is the German city where drivers spend
the most time in stop-and-go traffic, coming in at 51 hours

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Low infrastructure costs
Graphic: Porsche Consulting

annually. Overall, German drivers incurred per capita traffic-related losses of $1,770 in 2017 alone (3). Despite thisworsening congestion on the ground, cities have lost nothing of their attraction. The U.N. estimates that by 2050, 70
to 80 percent of the world’s population will be urbanized,
bringing with it new challenges and opportunities for more
efficient and sustainable mobility solutions (4). Some ofthem include leaving the traffic jams behind and literally lifting off with vertical mobility.
As an integrated part of future urban mobility, passenger
drones offer significant advantages (fig. 9). They are an
innovative, quick transportation mode that requires low
infrastructure investments because “air roads” are almost
cost-free and lack traditional limiting factors such as intersections. Drone rides provide extra flexibility because they
are easy to configure and adopt second- and third-tier connections in a city.

13

Customer journey on-demand eVTOL air taxi

Air mobility
Boarding atvertiporteVTOL
flightDe-boarding
at vertiport

4

5

6

1

2

3

7

Choice ofmobility mode

Order offly-rideTransport tovertiport

Transport todestination

Groundmobility

Groundmobility

Constraints
ΏΏ No end-to-end mobility – transfer between other mobility modes necessary
ΏΏ Infrastructure limitations (starting and landing)ΏΏ Complementary mobility service only
Figure 10. From click to lift-off: eVTOL mobility services offer an end-to-end journey that combines ground with air transport.

Saving time on transportation–or avoiding traffic jams on the
ground–is the basic precondition for this market to develop.
At the same time, the hub-to-hub architecture requires passengers to transfer, which can be time consuming. In mostcases, vertical mobility will only win against other modes oftransportation when passengers can save at least 20 percent in total travel time, notwithstanding transfers.

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

take customers from quickly putting together their itinerary,ordering their fly-ride, catching ground transport to a vertiport, boarding the eVTOL flight, and, once landed, having aride-hailing service waiting to cover the last mile. Navigating this multipart journey also allows for the more efficientuse of existing bottlenecks on the ground by unburdening
congested infrastructure.

A seamless experience will be another key to the successof passenger mobility service offerings (fig. 10). Customers already have a wide choice of transportation modes inwhich passenger drones must find their appropriate place.
On the one end of the spectrum are fixed line modes likethe subway, train, or commercial airlines that predictably gofrom point A to B. On the other end are individual modes,
from riding a bike to driving a personal vehicle. A seamlessexperience of mobility-on-demand via personal flight will

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

14

Travel time comparison road vs. air – direct connection and transfer
Trip comparison of eVTOL and car
Car isfaster[min]

Case-bycase*

Direct connection
airport to Marienplatz

eVTOL
is faster

Transfer incl.
first and last mile

Hotel

45

V

V

40
Airport35

Isar

Marienplatz

V

V

AirportMarienplatz

30
25
20
15
10
5
0

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

~5 min25mile**Last~3 minDe-boarding~10 mineVTOL flightincl. take-off
and landing~3 minBoarding~5 minFirst mile**

35

40 km

30 km

40 km

30 km

45 min10 min45 min26 min~35 min time savings~19 min time savings

40 [km]** Depending on congestion and minimum time savings to accept transfer connection with ride-and-fly** Depending on location of vertiport

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

Figure 11. Getting in and getting on: drones beat cars when it comes to travel time, as with this example in Munich.

For distances of 20 kilometers and more, a passenger drone
offers an attractive alternative to a conventional taxi, as shownin figure 11. The more congested a roadway on the ground,the more compelling a ride in a passenger drone becomes.

become a crucial part of an integrated solution to mitigate our
growing transportation woes. The limited number of take-off
and landing sites constrains eVTOL aircraft, for instance, so
there is a risk of traffic jams in the sky.

In short, there will always be main arteries for mass transit
and the fast conveyance of people and goods, complemented
by secondary arteries and even smaller routes, similar to thefinely tiered circulatory systems of a biological organism. Vertical mobility is an innovative option to provide fast service forsecond- and third-tier connections with lower transportation
capacity. It is important to note, however, that while vertical mobility will not be a panacea to solve congestion, it can

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

15

3 The Timeline: A Journey to Zero-Emission Flying Taxis
Time window for market launch
Expectedstart

PrivateeVTOL

Possible range
for take-off

Concept
validation

Expected
start
Possible range for take-off

Concept validation

Commercial
mobility
service

2015

2020

2025

2030

2035

Figure 12. Designing for the coming volume market: development timeline for private and commercial markets until 2035.

2035+

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

The introduction of electric passenger drones will go throughseveral phases until they become flying taxis–a full-fledged,
integrated, commercial mobility offering. As pictured infigure 12, initial designs for both private and commercial
passenger drones have yielded various proofs of concept.
They will take flight in a niche market, starting in 2022. A
volume market will begin to emerge during the decade from2025 to 2035.

copters. Since they make up a very small, even shrinking,transportation niche, these drones will not be a volume market. Commercial air mobility services like air taxis will not belaunched before 2025 with eVTOL.

We have identified three major drivers that lead down different paths to the passenger drone’s success. The variance inthese three drivers results in diverse growth scenarios. The
first factor is the starting time for initial tests and services
and a particular technology’s pace of development. The second is the speed in modifying multiple generations of eVTOL
aircraft that achieve a higher overall equipment efficiency.
The third and final factor impacting each development corridor is the adoption rate, or how many cities build vertiports
and other basic components of the necessary infrastructure.

An earlier starting point requires positive breakthroughdevelopments worldwide, which would lead to faster andmore frequent iterations. This would compress the processof certification and development of passenger drones into aperiod of just five years. More frequent update cycles would
result in more mature drone generations between 2025 and2035. A later starting point, on the other hand, would leadto a sequential and slower development flow, during which
certification and development would take eight years andproduce only one generation of drones between 2025 and2035.

Privately owned passenger eVTOL for individual use andownership could become a reality within the next five years.
We expect passenger drones to be a niche market initially,
with private eVTOL becoming available between 2022 and2025. This will be due to lower certification barriers compared with commercial passenger service and to social
acceptance, which will in turn influence the legal framework.
The private eVTOL aircraft segment will be a luxury or premium offering that substitutes for and complements heliPorsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

Big investments in technology and infrastructure will accelerate the creation of the overall ecosystem, generating
growth in cities all over the world.

The journey to lift-off can be divided into three phases
beginning today and lasting until 2020, then from 2020 to2025, and finally from 2025 to 2035. Each interval serves
as an important milestone for technological development,
certification, and commercial build-out. While the current
phase is mostly focused on testing, the five years from2020 onward will revolve around being first to market, andthe decade after 2025 will be characterized by defining andrefining the winning concept.
16

From today to 2020:
plenty of testing
The first wave of personal air taxi designs was released in2015, with companies such as Ehang, Volocopter, Airbus
Vahana, and SureFly conducting the first successful flights of
their prototype models in 2017 and 2018.
Commercial mobility services are already being tested andwill be launched a decade from now as electric air taxi andaircraft rental services. Innovative cities such as Singapore,
Dubai, São Paulo, or Dallas/Fort Worth will be the main early
adopters of eVTOL aircraft, conducting limited tests in preparation for a global roll-out. We can expect to see tests of commercial air taxi service concepts involving traditional helicopters. Since current energy density is limited to 250 W h/kg apassenger drone can only be airborne for a maximum of 30
minutes, not accounting for a payload and additional safety
time, as a buffer (alternate time) for emergency landing.
Whether commercial mobility services can be realized as
described hinges on successful tests in the first few cities.
Companies in this field will initially focus on becoming thefirst mover who can bring a working concept to market. Later,
attention will shift to the speed at which new technologies
can be developed and implemented.

From 2020 to 2025:
being first to market
The five years from 2020 to 2025 will be characterized bya wide range of tests and experiments to evaluate the various technical and business aspects. New concepts such as
Lilium, Volocopter, or Uber Elevate will have to substantiate
their claims and ambitions for private mobility in competition with existing mobility concepts. The lowered safety
standard for novel and unproven eVTOL aircraft carries therisk that players in the field act in a too risk-prone or careless manner. Any resulting setback would endanger social
acceptance.
Major improvements in battery technology and noise emissions will occur during this phase. Until 2025 we expectthat batteries using today’s conventional lithium-ion(Li-NMC) will be able to achieve a density of up to 300 W
h/kg. Assuming an available charging rate of 2C to 4C (seeglossary) batteries can be charged to 80 percent capacity in
15 to 30 minutes, thereby only achieving a short lifespan of
500 to 700 cycles.

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

Noise is another barrier to adoption. Helicopters are too loud,and there is a clear need to conduct additional research into
the noise emissions of eVTOL aircraft, since their overallnoise profile also depends on the number of drones operating in a city and their take-off and landing frequency. In many
areas today, noise pollution is the limiting factor for helicopters, meaning that often only half of all planned sightseeing
flights receive the permission to take off.
Certification standards will be augmented and newly defined
to become the basis for certifying DEP (distributed electric
propulsion) technologies. Those certification standards will
be developed step by step. Technical factors and regulatory
requirements combined will help define the design envelope for drone aircraft systems. We believe that the highsafety standards of commercial aviation are the non-negotiable basis for certifying drones, even though some new
and disruptive market entrants argue that safety standards
for existing hobby drones suffice. In this case, the generally
accepted risk models for hobby drones (10-5) imply that
23,000 passenger drones clocking close to 50 million flight
hours per year would translate into one critical (not necessarily fatal) incident every second day, which is clearly notacceptable.
A lot will hinge on whether people perceive drones as bringing benefits to all parts of society. Deploying them for searchand rescue operations and government security can have apositive impact on demonstrating the mass suitability ofeVTOL aircraft. Over time, these systems should prove that
their benefits outweigh the costs, ushering in broader passenger mobility services.
The public should also rightfully expect laws to define
appropriate clearance above private property to prevent privacy violations. Additionally, there is a clear need to develop
suitable safeguards for network security that allow remotepilots to override the on-board pilot in an emergency andprevent remote misuse, such as a terrorist taking over aeVTOL aircraft.
The sensitive topic of visual and noise pollution must also be
addressed. This can be achieved by creating airspace constraints for particularly susceptible areas or by consolidating traffic into existing commuter corridors. More measurements and additional research are necessary to determine
what noise levels are acceptable with regard to a location,for example, in the vicinity of a vertiport.

17

In the first phase of the roll-out, existing infrastructuresuch as airports and helipads will be used to support private mobility for intracity and city-to-city trips. Passenger
eVTOL services will initially use defined air corridors to allow
experts to devise and augment the existing air traffic management system (ATM). In the future, we expect unmanned
aircraft system traffic management (UTM) including automated flight towers.

From 2025 to 2035:
eyes on the winning concept
Once first movers have begun to introduce their concepts
to the market, the focus will shift more toward technology
development and increased speed to roll out innovations
faster. It will be a dynamic ecosystem marked by an expanding group of players, a growing number of varying concepts,
and updates to already existent systems. In short, competition around vertical mobility will heat up in the decade from2025 to 2035.
One of the key areas in which we will see improvements
is battery technology to accommodate longer distancesand higher payloads. The goal until 2035 is to achieve anenergy density of 400 to 500 W h/kg or more, roughly double from today. From 2025 to 2035, more advanced battery
technologies such as lithium-silicon, lithium-sulfur, or allsolid-state can be expected to increase energy density to
between 350 and 400 W h/kg, or even more. New technologies will extend a battery’s lifespan to between 700 and
1,000 cycles and increase the charging rate, meaning it willtake only 15 minutes to reach 80 percent capacity.
Car batteries would only last a few months if they had toendure the charging cycles of a drone. Passenger drones
also need significant reserves for emergency situations,which today are budgeted at an additional 45 minutes offlight. Even if this safety buffer were lowered to just 15 minutes, due to a dense network of alternate landing spots, itwould still require half of today’s battery capacity.

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

The regulatory and legal framework for eVTOL aircraft will befurther fleshed out during this decade. New certifications forpassenger drones could be based on yet-to-be developed
standards for unmanned aerial systems (UAS) on which theinternational standards body JARUS is currently working.
At the same time, a range of certification options (for verysmall aircraft or ASTM, CS-LURS, CS-LUAS, CS-23, CS-25,
CS-27, CS-29) exist to determine airworthiness and certify
specific aircraft.
As previously mentioned, the organization and service ofpassenger drones also need to be certified, and we can
expect that existing regulations for pilot licensing will beamended and adjusted to cover passenger drones. In addition, the increasing number of cities developing their verticalmobility infrastructure will trigger the wider adoption of vertiports as standard hubs. Furthermore, we expect assisted
or autonomous systems to be certified during this decade.
Vertical mobility has to operate within its own set of traffic conditions and challenges. Instead of navigating manyother drivers and intersections, passenger drones will haveto operate at great heights above a city and travel at muchhigher speeds.
As eVTOL aircraft become more widespread, a new vertiport infrastructure is required for intracity mobility services.
Development of such vertiports is critical for the commercial success of passenger drones and will be shaped bysocial acceptance and authorities’ actions. This phase calls
for more urban integration to accommodate those take-off
and landing sites as well as a new charging infrastructurethat offers both standardized hardware and software forhigh-efficiency charging.
Finally, ATM needs to be augmented to encompass both
ATM and UTM, to in turn enable higher traffic density forpassenger drones. It is likely that this will evolve from thebest practices developed in operating inspection and goods
drones.

18

4 Sizing Up the Market until 2035
Overview: inspection, goods, passenger
The combined market for inspection, goods, and passenger drones and supporting services
is projected to be roughly $74 billion in 2035. Inspection drones will be a $34 billion market,
followed by passenger drones with $32 billion ($21 billion for intracity and $11 billion forcity-to-city service), goods drones with $4 billion, and finally supporting services at $4 billion(fig. 13).

Vertical mobility market size 2035

Inspection
$

34 bn

Goods
$

4 bn

Passenger$

21 bn $ 11 bn

Intracity

City-to-city

Figure 13. Billions in play: market size for inspection, passenger, and goods drones plus supporting services.

Supporting
services$

4 bn

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

Flying taxis in urban areas:
passenger market in 2035
Starting from a small base in 2025, the market for urban
passenger drones is estimated to grow quickly at about 35
percent CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) to reach$21 billion by 2035 for intracity mobility, leaving aside cityto-city connections ($11 billion) for the moment.2

Looking at the evolution of mobility over time, the year 2025
will see a $1 billion market for passenger eVTOL aircraft andan installed base of 500 units. By 2030 those numbers willrise to $4 billion and 2,000 units, until they reach $21 billion
and an installed base of 15,000 passenger drones in 2035
(fig. 14).

2 Based on market model by Porsche Consulting.
Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

19Market size
Year

2025

2030

Regional split 2035

Theoretically achievable
market with fully
established infrastructure

2035

25%

45%

Asia Pacific

21
4

1

eVTOL
units

$230 billion

Europe andrest ofthe worldInbillion
USD

Total addressable market

30%

Americas

500

2,000

15,000Figure 14. Ramping up: how and where in the world the passenger drone market will grow until 2035.

To put this market into a global context, by 2035 theinstalled base is projected to reach 1.7 billion cars (5) and
42,000 aircraft with a passenger capacity of more than 100
seats or more than 10 tons of cargo (6).
This estimate is based on up to 100 vertiports per city,
assuming that mobility services are introduced and the necessary infrastructure is built out in early adopter cities, followed by deployments in additional cities around the world.
Market saturation is not expected by 2035, although thisdepends on regulatory framework and social acceptance inurban areas.
In theory, the total addressable market for eVTOL aircraftis much larger, comprising up to $230 billion and 200,000
units, depending on the price of the service, the available
infrastructure, and social acceptance. Yet it is unlikely that
this volume could be attained. In order to achieve 200,000

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

200,000
eVTOL units
Graphic: Porsche Consulting

units operating at a price point similar to today’s taxis, passenger drones would have to be deployed in all types ofcities around the world–not just in a few dozen large andmegacities, but in medium and small population centers as
well. These cities would have to offer a fully built-out network of vertiports. In megacities and large cities the total
adressable market will not exceed 75,000 active units, andwithout major infrastructure build-out the number will belimited to 40,000 active units.
The Asia-Pacific region is expected to capture around 45
percent of this market by 2035, translating to $9.5 billion
and an installed base of 6,750 units, followed by the Americas with approximately 30 percent of the market, equal to$6.3 billion and an installed base of 4,500 units. Europe andthe rest of the world will garner the remaining 25 percent, or$5.3 billion and 3,750 units.

20

Value chain for intracity mobility:
hardware, services, and others
The value chain for the passenger drone market in 2035 canbe broken down into three main categories (fig. 15). Hardware will be a $5 billion market or only about 25 percent of
the total, including product, certification, and charging infrastructure. Services will comprise roughly 50 percent of thevalue chain. Looking at the details of various services, we

expect the majority of the market to be on-demand transportation and the rest to be split into eVTOL aircraft rental,
private ownership, and other mobility services. Over time,
we foresee a shift toward on-demand transportation. The
remaining quarter of the market, or $5 billion, will be made up
of insurance, maintenance, certification, and other services.

eVTOL market size distribution 2035 in billion USD – intracity mobility scenario

21
5

11

5
Market size

HardwareServices

Others

100%

~25%

~50%

~25%

Figure 15. Services will rule: breaking down the overall passenger drone market by major categories.

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

21

Example for intracity mobility
Attractive cities for vertical mobility
To analyze what eVTOL aircraft and services can add to a city’s
mobility mix, it is useful to take a closer look at cities of different size and population density. Cities around the world canbe grouped into 50 to 60 megacities with a population of fivemillion or more, followed by around 100 large cities with three
million or more people, approximately 400 medium cities withmore than one million people, and finally a cluster of 3,500
smaller cities. For the purposes of this study, we have classified
cities according to their density, settlement, and income structure, ranging from urban to suburban and rural, and segmented
into income levels. We then performed a detailed analysis oneach of the five resulting city clusters, selecting at least one
sample city for each category. Future scenarios for each sample city incorporate criteria such as their topography, mobility
modes, mobility needs, and traffic flows, as well as the distribution of live-and-work patterns across their geographic area.

Public transport

Taxi

Example São PauloSão Paulo in Brazil is a megacity with an estimated population of roughly 21 million within the metropolitan region. At
full build-out, São Paulo can accommodate roughly 1,050
passenger drones because of their high potential to replace
several modes of transport, chief among them private cars,
public transit, and taxis for activities such as commuting,business trips, shopping, and leisure. Another 130 eVTOL
aircraft stand to replace a third of today’s more than 400
helicopters operating in the city (fig. 16).
No matter what city we examine, every one of them has different modes of transportation at various levels of availability and suffers from its own specific bottlenecks. Dallas, forinstance, has little to no public transport, while London liesat the other end of the spectrum. In the final analysis, eachcity has its own mobility characteristics, resulting in individual strengths and pain points that can be addressed whenvertical mobility is introduced.

Private car

Soft mode

Helicopter

Mobility modal
split 2017

20%

9%

65%

6%

Additionalverticalmobilitymode

Mobility needuse cases

Commutingand businessBusinessand leisureCommuting,business, leisure,
shopping, andprivate errands

Insignificant
eVTOL use cases

Businessand leisure

eVTOL potential
in units

820
70

Insignificant
eVTOL potential

30

130

1,050 eVTOLs
Figure 16. Replacing cars and public transport: the potential of passenger drones for a megacity like São Paulo.

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

22Vertiport infrastructure build-up in example city São Paulo
01

02

03

Initialization

Expansion

Elaboration

Connection of hubs with existing
helipads

Increase of fixed routes for commuters and city visitors

On-demand services and reduction of
first and last mile

V

5

120

V

40

390

Figure 17. Expansion in three steps: intracity development of vertiports in relation to the number of passenger drones.

V

100

1050

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

In the future, the way we transport people and goods willchange, and this transition is already under way. Individualcars with a driver or owner behind the wheel have begun
to make way for car-sharing options and the first autonomous vehicles. Taxis are being supplemented and replacedby ride-hailing and ride-sharing services such as Uber andLyft or Uber Pool and MOIA. Innovation is even beginningto change soft modes of transportation, where walking andbiking are complemented by e-bikes and urban bike-sharing
programs. Likewise, helicopters, currently the only option forvertical mobility, will share the skies with passenger drones.
To efficiently use various mobility choices, a city needs anintermodal system that can tie all modes together.

During the expansion phase, a growing number of fixedroutes along major arterials will serve commuters and visitors. Depending on the particular city, the number of vertiports in frequently visited hubs can scale up to 40, with an
installed base of around 160 to 390 passenger drones. The
full-service phase or elaboration of a city network will draw
in more and more customers because of the attractivenessof on-demand passenger drones. An expansion to up to
100 vertiports and 400 to 1,050 passenger drones is likely
because it provides sufficient coverage for the city and also
guarantees that the vertiports are widely accessible on footand by bike, the standard soft-mode transportation options
for the first and last mile in many cities.

We foresee the starting and landing infrastructure for dronesin the city developing in three phases, largely due to the sizable infrastructure costs involved (fig. 17). Vertical mobility services will initially start at existing transport hubs, like
airports and railway stations, partially replacing helicoptersand utilizing existing heliports that provide fast connections
between heavily congested roads. We envision around fivesuch vertiports in major hubs, such as airports and hotel
rooftops, accommodating an active, installed base of around
120 eVTOL aircraft.

We expect that intracity passenger drones will operate
mainly during daylight hours (on average 12.5 hours perday) at an estimated cost of $1.80 per kilometer (fig. 18).
Of that total, 20 percent will be product-associated costs,
including depreciation, battery, and eVTOL certification, and42 percent will fall on the solution-provider side for landing
fees, charging, and the like. Service provider costs for thepilot, operations, air traffic management, and maintenancewill constitute 36 percent of total costs, with other costs
like insurance claiming the remaining two percent. This cost
scenario is based on initially operating drones with pilots.
Once autonomous systems come online, passenger drone
flights will become less expensive.

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

23

Mobility service costs per eVTOL km
Serviceprovider~$0.65

Others~$0.04
Vehicle~$0.35~$1.8
Solutionprovider~$0.75

Product hardware costs*$0.25 million – $1 million
Infrastructure costs (exemplary)
Vertiport$4 million

Charging
infrastructure$0.1 million* Costs depending on concept, seats, volume, and the like
Figure 18. Where the money goes: passenger drone costs per km broken
down by service, hardware, and infrastructure.
Graphic: Porsche Consulting

Vertical mobility comes with other costs, among them about$4 million to build one small vertiport and around $100,000
to install one high-speed charging column, depending on
the existing infrastructure, especially the electric grid. Eachdrone costs between $250,000 and $1 million or evenmore subject to production volume and air performance.
We expect drones to have a relatively brief lifespan for two
reasons: First, they undergo rapid technological progressand short innovation cycles. Second, series production will
become increasingly efficient compared to maintaining an
aging fleet over time. While planes in the commercial aviation sector undergo regular rounds of repair and overhaul tolast an average of 30 years, a passenger drone will only exist
five to six years while their volume continually increases overtheir product life cycle.
As with any projection, actual numbers are sensitive tosignificant assumptions. There are four major levers thatwill determine the eVTOL market’s upside and downsidepotentials, albeit with varying impacts (fig. 19). A higher
or lower flight price per minute, fewer vertiports in a city,
slower eVTOL cruising speeds, and additional transfer time
while boarding due to more stringent security checks can
all have a large impact on the market. A considerably higher
congestion index–or more traffic jams in cities–will only
have a minor impact, however. In general, we assume a pricerange for on-demand air taxis of 8 to 18 dollars per minute,which is comparable to a premium taxi fare, considering thegreater speed, shorter distance, and potentially higher loadfactor of more than one passenger.

Sensitivities for size of intracity market
Sensitivities

Congestionindex

Number ofvertiports

Cruising speed
eVTOL

Transfertime

Baseline

18%–39%100–200

200 km/h5

Change38%–59%15–40

70 km/h15Marketimpact

+2%

-40%

-30%

-20%

Figure 19. Price matters, traffic jams not so much: sensitivity analysis of the eVTOL mobility market by major factors.
Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

Graphic: Porsche Consulting24

Scenario for intracity market:
conservative and progressive
As to how vertical mobility may play out, there are morescenarios on the horizon than the aforementioned one. It
is therefore useful to complement this basis scenario withboth a conservative and a progressive outlook (fig. 20).
Under conservative assumptions, the market will start out at$0 and no relevant installed base in 2025 and slowly grow to$1 billion and 1,000 units in 2030 within four major cities,
reaching only $4 billion and 3,000 eVTOL aircraft in 2035

Conservative

within 16 cities. A more progressive scenario foresees a $2
billion market with 1,000 aircraft operating in 16 cities by2025, growing to $18 billion and 12,000 units in 2030 in
25 cities, and eventually reaching $58 billion and 43,000
units in 64 cities by 2035–the most aggressive scenario we
could imagine. This aggressive outlook is predicated on theassumption of semiautonomous and autonomous drones.
Otherwise, a shortage of tens of thousands of human pilots
would become the bottleneck to vertical mobility.

Base

Progressive
58

InbillionUSD

Units(installed
base)

21

0

1

4

1

4

0

1,000

3,000

500

2,000

18
2

15,0001,000

12,000 43,000

For comparision: city-to-city market 2035
is expected to be 8,000 units and $11 billion
2025

2030

2035

2025

2030

2035

Figure 20. Modest to max: conservative and progressive scenarios of how the passenger drone market will evolve.

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

2025

2030

2035

Graphic: Porsche Consulting25Additional market:
city-to-city and additional trips
Beyond the intracity passenger drone market, there are twomore markets worth paying attention to. City-to-city transportation could be worth an additional $11 billion in 2035
on top of the $21 billion for intracity rides (fig. 21). Further segments created by city-to-city flights and increased
demand for new mobility services are hard to estimate at

this point, but the evolution of passenger drones will certainly generate additional revenue and business opportunities. We envision these new transportation offerings as awide range of spontaneous, on-demand trips to quickly getfrom A to B, escape to the countryside, or visit a neighboringcity to shop or attend an event.

Intracity

City-to-city~20–50 km~100–400 km

Vertical take-off and landing

Vertical take-off and landing andshort take-off and landing

Infrastructure

Existing and new

Existing and newCompetitiorsTaxi, car,urban public transport

Car, train, plane

Flight distance(indicative range)
Aircraft

Figure 21. Going further: city-to-city trips represent an additional market segment worth billions.

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

26

Inspection and goods market:
a very brief overview
Whether surveying fields and forests for crop maturity or pest
infestation, checking up on real estate and infrastructuresuch as bridges and wind turbines in remote locations, making movies and gathering television footage, or creating compelling live entertainment, as at the recent Olympic Gamesin South Korea, today small eVTOL aircraft are routinely usedin significant numbers for inspection applications all over theworld.
Drones are also deployed for real-world field testing to deliver
goods. In fact, the first niche applications for such transport
drones began in 2016. Among the major companies testingthese aircraft are Amazon, the global courier service DHL, andthe Chinese company JD.com, in areas ranging from the UnitedStates and several European countries to Asia and Australia.
The major driver of market development3 for non-passenger
drones is the autonomy level of remote operations. While thecurrent wave of aircraft, whether consumer or commercial
applications, depends on visual line of sight (VLOS) operations, within three to five years they will be operated beyond
VLOS (BVLOS). The limitation so far has been the missing
approval for such BVLOS operations in most countries. Going
to BVLOS operation will enable an additional range of applications and allow one human to control many drones. Autonomous drones will become a reality in the next 10 to 25 years.
Aerospace companies and aviation agencies around the world
have just begun discussions, and one can expect cargo planes
to be tested in rural areas.
As a last-mile delivery option, goods drones will have to compete with other existing and new offerings such as bike couri-

ers and urban delivery robots navigating roads and sidewalks.
Goods drones have a solid business case with BVLOS operations, for instance in delivering medication and emergency
supplies to remote locations, but they will not become widely
deployed until the third phase–semi-autonomy–becomesreality. Operating autonomously will give these drones thenecessary efficiency advantage over other modes of delivery.
Certification of future unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) is the
responsibility of JARUS, a group of experts from the National
Aviation Authorities (NAAs) and regional aviation safety organizations in 54 countries as well as the EASA. Its stated purpose is to recommend a single set of technical, safety, andoperational requirements for the certification and safe integration of UAS into airspace. The organization aims to provide
guidance material to make it easier for authorities to draw up
their own requirements. Once the framework has been created, it will influence the certification and usage of inspection, goods, and passenger drones. In both cases, very similarsafety and security concerns will have to be addressed.
The market for inspection drones will grow at a CAGR of 20
percent to reach nearly 22 million active units and $34 billion by 2035, with the commercial market being its biggest
driver (fig. 22). Starting in 2020, this market will initially becomprised of $8 billion in commercial and $1 billion in hobby
drones. It is expected to take off between 2019 and 2025,
depending on local regulations and operational areas of service and will hit $24 billion in 2025 with 21.3 million active
drones. By 2030 the market size will reach $32 billion and top
out at $34 billion in 2035. The number of active drones willremain roughly stable at 21.5 million in 2035.

Market size
Year

2015

2020

2025

Service split 2035
2030
32

In
billion
USD

2035
34

24

Others30%

Agriculture andforestry

10%
Hobby

9
2

Million
eVTOL
units

15%

1.5

15%
8.5

21.3

21.4

21.5

Media andentertainment

Figure 22. Keeping tabs on crops and infrastructure: a breakdown of the market for inspection drones until 2035.

30%

Inspection andmonitoring

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

3 In order to model market development, this report drew on a large number of basic data sets. Essential sources are listed in the reference section (7-12).
Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

27

Significant revenue in 2035 will come from the agriculture, farming, and forestry sectors (30 percent) as well as
inspection and monitoring of assets such as real estate andinfrastructure (30 percent). The third largest segment will
be media and entertainment at 15 percent. Services aroundhobby applications will only capture 10 percent of the market in 2035.
The comparatively small market for goods drones will growfrom $300 million in 2020 to $1.1 billion in 2025, andfrom $3.1 billion in 2030 to $4 billion in 2035 at a CAGR

of approximately 20 percent (fig. 23). Regulatory frameworkand new delivery robots are expected to limit this market
and will influence the cost structure. The number of active
drones will go from 7,000 units in 2020 to 25,000 in 2025,
reaching 95,000 in 2030 and 125,000 in 2035. The market
for goods drones will be orders of magnitude smaller thanthe market for inspection and passenger drones for several
reasons. Goods delivery is already a hotly contested market
occupied by established modes such as bikes and new solutions like AGVs (Automated Guided Vehicles).

Market size
Year

2015

2020

2025

Service split 2035
2030

2035
4.0

Thousand
eVTOL
units

3

25

95

125

15%

Cultivation andfertilization

Figure 23. When time is of the essence: the market for goods drones and their applications by sector until 2035.

Goods drones are only advantageous when time is of theessence or remote locations need to be reached. They arealso limited in terms of how much weight they can carryover certain distances. While the global market for CEP(courier, express, and parcel services) is worth $145 billion, time-critical shipments requiring instant, same-day,and highly reliable delivery only comprise one-fifth (13,14).
Drones also face additional limitations when it comes tolanding spot availability and noise restrictions in urban
areas. At the same time, goods drones have few benefits
for rural areas compared to autonomous vehicles, because
traffic density outside a congested urban area is not critical.
In other words, there is no need to make a large number ofurban deliveries by air.

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

Last-mile
expressdeliveryEmergencytransport

0.3

7

30%

10%

1.1
0.1

10%

Cargo transport

3.1

Inbillion
USD

5%

Maintenance andair handling

Delivery
network
extension

30%
Graphic: Porsche Consulting

Most of the goods drones revenue in 2035 will come fromlast-mile express delivery, with a 30 percent share, whiledrones deployed to extend an established delivery network
will also capture a 30 percent share. Drones for cultivationand fertilization in agriculture will capture around 15 percent. The fourth and fifth largest applications for goods
drones will be emergency transport and cargo transport,with 10 percent each. Maintenance and air handling willaccount for the remaining 5 percent of the market in 2035.

28

5 Seizing the Opportunity of Vertical Mobility
To view a city from above is to observe a world in perpetual motion. Mobility is the lifeblood of our cities and essential to sustaining urban life by moving people and goods
around. The strongest layer is a network of public transport
options consisting of subways, trains, and buses that carry
thousands of people to and from work every day along fixedroutes. Another layer of urban mobility offerings is privatetransport, a dynamic puzzle of private cars and taxis circulating in abstract and ever-changing patterns. Add to that
hustle and bustle fleets of trucks that deliver goods, pick uporders, and cart away garbage or recyclables. Finally, there
are soft-mode transportation options such as pedestrians
and people weaving through traffic on their own or sharedbikes and scooters. In the sky, helicopters serve narrowly
defined emergency and transportation needs.
Passenger drones also allow cities to use their existing
resources more efficiently by sharing and pooling trips and byintegrating mobility as a service into larger mobility platforms.
This transition will bring about change for everyone involved.
Cars will make way for autonomous vehicles and car-sharing
services. Taxis will be replaced by ride-hailing and ride-sharing. The private bike will see competition from e-bikes andbike-sharing programs. Helicopters finally will share the airspace with eVTOL aircraft.

Players in the vertical mobility ecosystem need strong partners
Vertical mobility ecosystem players will need to establish
strong partnerships between public and private entities tosucceed. They have to demonstrate the social benefits for

Mobility
efficiency driverthe broader population and ensure the concerted and coordinated efforts of all parties: you and me, cities and lawmakers, hardware and service players as well as investors.

Public transport

Taxi

Private car

Soft mode

Vertical mobility

Transparency andmultimodal app
integration

Ride-hailing,
sharing, andpooling

Car-sharing andpooling, ridesharing

Bike-sharing

Fly-hailing andpooling

New mobility services and intermodal network drive efficiency
Figure 24. The best way to get around: intermodal mobility services allow the efficient use of a city’s resources.

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

You and me
Vertical mobility will take off in several phases until it
becomes a means of transport for you and me. In the beginning, it will offer point-to-point transportation for businesstravelers and wealthy people, just like today’s well-to-do canafford to use helicopters. But before long, passenger drones
will hold the promise to democratize vertical mobility.
Electric VTOL aircraft will be able to cover fairly long–and
as time goes by even longer–distances of up to several
hundred kilometers, including city-to-city transport. They
will go from initially being a premium product to becoming
affordable and accessible to most of us. Drones will makemankind’s dream of flying a reality, for instance, by providing
the freedom to spontaneously escape into a green suburban
environment to spend time with the family.
Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

Electric VTOL aircraft can also have a positive impact on
emergency, safety, and rescue operations. Passenger drones
will make it easier to transport patients, while goods drones
can ensure the timely delivery of medication, blood, or donororgans. Inspection drones can perform important safety andsurveillance missions in a crisis or during a natural catastrophe.
As with all modes of transportation, safety comes first.
Whether vertical mobility becomes commercially successful and socially accepted will depend on establishing public
approval before commercial development can occur. The
individual’s anticipation and eventual excitement to take tothe sky has to be reconciled with a framework of rules andregulations that ensure eVTOL aircraft are accessible to all,at an acceptable price and noise level.
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City and lawmakers
Pioneer cities will set standards early on, but they have tomaintain control of the infrastructure and make good useof the possibilities vertical mobility offers them. As soon asvertiports are built, they should be open to all providers, similar to the concept of net neutrality that aims to prevent thepreferential traffic flow for bits on the Internet. Such neutrality for vertiports is particularly crucial during the initial infra-

Public transport
Service

Infrastructure

Taxi

Private car

Soft mode

Vertical mobility

Private services, e.g. car-sharing

PrivateservicePublic infrastructure

eVTOL
infrastructure
shouldbe public

Private ownership of resources

PrivatehardwareComprehensive
integration of
public service
and resources

Hardwarestructure build-out and should apply to all key traffic hubs
to ensure the vertical mobility ecosystem does not become
dominated by quasi monopolies. Therefore, urban planners,
politicians, and regulators should focus on each city’s traffic-specific pain points to make sure they can provide test
beds in a timely fashion and guarantee network neutrality
for eVTOL infrastructure (fig. 25).

Figure 25. Keeping options open for all: why public infrastructure needs network neutrality to flourish.

A city can attain high transportation flexibility with a low
number of vertiports because these take-off and landing sites
allow many possible connections. A network of just 10 vertiports, for instance, already equals 45 possible connections.
Cities can also reap the benefits of low infrastructure costs.
Vertical mobility has the advantage of lower capital expenditures for passenger drones per distance unit than for othermodes of transportation. Construction costs for a 35 kilometer section of intracity highway or a new light-rail or subway

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

line can range anywhere from hundreds of millions to billionsof dollars, depending on whether the track is at ground level,
elevated, or located in a tunnel. By comparison, passenger
drones require only a few resources, such as vertiports andcharging stations.
Action is also required to safely and securely manage thecomings and goings of inspection and goods drones in cities.
An integrated ATM/UTM scheme has to include cybersecurity
to prevent the misuse of inspection and goods drones.

Hardware and service players
The hardware and service players in this emerging space willconsist of established aircraft manufacturers (e.g., Boeing,
Airbus), automotive OEMs, startups (e.g., Ehang, Jobi Aviation, Lilium, Volocopter), technology companies such asIntel, and mobility service providers like Uber.

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

Hardware is a key component of this future ecosystem andhas an important impact on what the infrastructure, laws,
and regulations as well as social acceptance will look like.
By hardware we mean the eVTOL aircraft itself, the charging
equipment, other equipment, batteries, and DEP. The latter
will, to a large degree, be defined by its acoustic profile.

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As previously mentioned, multirotor concepts have theadvantage of being first to market. Other concepts thatare faster and significantly more efficient will follow. At thispoint, it is unclear which aircraft system will win. Different
players are exploring and evaluating several aerodynamic
concepts, but it is safe to say that drone systems with airfoils have clear advantages when it comes to travel speed
and efficiency. Companies in this area have to strike a balance between their desire to be the first to market and theinherent advantages of certain concepts, all the while inter-acting with regulators to define the future standard. In the
beginning, all concepts will be operated by a human pilot,
followed by assisted and autonomous systems.
Hardware must always be part of a larger, coherently integrated service, since mobility services will capture themajority of this new market. The future belongs to those
providers who can offer their customers ride-hailing via passenger drones that seamlessly ties into the larger mobility
network.

Investors
Vertical mobility is a venture that has been funded to thetune of more than $3 billion. Approximately $500 million
in investments flowed into this market in 2016 alone. We
expect costs ranging from $500 million to $1 billion tobring one type of passenger drone up to volume production(fig. 26). Partnerships will be necessary to make the required
investments in all market segments. The biggest bets todate have been placed in the areas of passenger drone hardware and new air traffic management systems.

Investing in vertical mobility requires a long-term horizon.
The ecosystem has just begun to take shape and will undergo
major inflection points between the years 2025 and 2035
until it can become an important part of tomorrow’s electrified mobility mix. Investors who want to be active in thisspace need to be aware of the various risks associated withthe eVTOL market, ranging from technical development, certification, and regulation to commercial viability and public
acceptance.

eVTOL development costs in million USD
Concept
exploration

Concept validation

Series development and type certification

1–4

10–90

400–900
Development$ 200–600

Industrialization$ 200–300

Wide range $ 0.5 billion – 1 billion depends on degree of innovation and aerodynamic concept of eVTOL
Figure 26. The $1 billion play: range of eVTOL costs from concept to series development.

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

Graphic: Porsche Consulting

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Appendix
References(1) Statistisches Bundesamt. 2017. Verkehr auf einen Blick. https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Thematisch/TransportVerkehr/Querschnitt/BroschuereVerkehrBlick0080006139004.pdf?__blob=publicationFile(2) UBER Uber Technologies Inc. 2016. Fast-Forwarding to a Future of On-Demand Urban Air Transportation. https://www.
uber.com/elevate.pdf.
(3) INRIX 2017. 2018. Traffic Scorecard – München bleibt Deutschlands Stauhauptstadt, Hamburg und Berlin holen auf.
http://inrix.com/press-releases/scorecard-2017-ger/.
(4) The United Nations. 2015. World Urbanization Prospects. The 2014 Revision, https://esa.un.org/Unpd/Wup/Publications/Files/WUP2014-Highlights.pdf.
(5) International Energy Agency. 2012. World Energy Outlook 2012. https://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/German.pdf.
(6) Airbus S.A.S. 2017. Growing Horizons 2017/2036. http://www.airbus.com/content/dam/corporate-topics/publications/backgrounders/Airbus_Global_Market_Forecast_2017-2036_Growing_Horizons_full_book.pdf.
(7) Frost & Sullivan. 2017. Future of Flying Cars 2017-2035. https://store.frost.com/future-of-flying-cars-2017-2035.
html.
(8) MarketsandMarkets. 2017. Target Drones Market – Global Forecast to 2022, https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/
Market-Reports/target-drone-market-115334135.html.
(9) MarketsandMarkets. 2017. UAV Drones Market – Global Forecast to 2022, https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/commercial-drones-market-195137996.html.
(10) Frost & Sullivan. 2016. Analysis of the Global Civil Helicopters Market. http://www.frost.com/sublib/display-report.
do?id=MBCF-01-00-00-00.
(11) SESAR Joint Undertaking. 2016. European Drones Outlook Study – Unlocking the value for Europe. https://www.sesarju.eu/sites/default/files/documents/reports/European_Drones_Outlook_Study_2016.pdf.
(12) Federal Aviation Administration. 2017. FAA Aerospace Forecast – Fiscal Years 2017 to 2037. https://www.faa.gov/
data_research/aviation/aerospace_forecasts/media/FY2017-37_FAA_Aerospace_Forecast.pdf.
(13) Universal Postal Union. 2015. The global postal network – key figures. http://news.upu.int/insight/backgrounders/
key-figures/.
(14) International Post Corporation. 2016. 2016 Key Findings – The Postal Industry Report. https://www.ipc.be/en/
Reports-library/Publications/IPCReports_Brochures/gpir2016-key-findings.

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Regulations
EASA

Listing of regulations CS-23/CS-25/CS-27/CS-29/CS-LSA, https://www.easa.europa.eu/documentlibrary/certification-specifications (2018).

JARUS

Listing of CS-LURS regulation, http://jarus-rpas.org/sites/jarus-rpas.org/files/storage/LibraryDocuments/jar_01_doc_jarus_certification_specification_for_lurs_-_30_oct_2013.pdf (2013).

JARUS

Listing of CS-LUAS regulation, http://jarus-rpas.org/sites/jarus-rpas.org/files/jar_05_doc_cs-luas_
v0_3.pdf (2016).

FAA

Listing of ASTM regulation, https://www.faa.gov/aircraft/gen_av/light_sport/media/StandardsChart.
pdf (2018).

Glossary
2C/4C
AGV
APAC
ATC
ATM
BVLOS
CEP
DEP
DLR
EASA
eVTOL
FAA
JARUS
Li-NMC
NAA
service provider
solution provider
STOL
TAM
UAS
UTM
vertiports
vertistops
VLOS
VTOL

charge and discharge rates. Compared to 2C, the 4C charge and discharge rate indicates an electric
current use twice as high during the same time interval.
automated guided vehicle
Asia Pacificair traffic control
air traffic management
beyond visual line of sight (sometimes also called BLOS)
courier, express and parcel services
distributed electric propulsion
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt
European Aviation Safety Agency
electric VTOL
Federal Aviation Administration
Joint Authorities for Rulemaking on Unmanned Systems
lithium-nickel-mangan-cobalt-oxide battery
national aviation authority
piloting, flight operations, air traffic management services, MRO services, etc.
landing fee, charging, etc.
short take-off and landing
total addressable market, theoretically achievable market with fully established infrastructure
unmanned aerial systems
unmanned aerial systems traffic management
VTOL hubs with multiple take-off and landing pads, as well as charging infrastructurea single VTOL pad with minimal infrastructure
visual line of sightvertical take-off and landing

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

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Authors, Sponsors, and Partners
Authors
Gregor Grandl
Senior Partner, Porsche Consulting

Dr. Martin Ostgathe
Senior Manager, Porsche Consulting

Dr. Jan Cachay
Manager, Porsche Consulting

Stefan Doppler
Senior Consultant, Porsche Consulting

John Salib
Senior Consultant, Porsche Consulting

Han Ross
Consultant, Porsche Consulting

Co-Authors and Sponsors
Jan Detert
Director Strategy, Porsche SE

Dr. Robert Kallenberg
Head of Group Strategic Planning, Volkswagen AG

Executive Sponsor
Philipp von Hagen
Member of the Executive Board, Porsche SE

Dr. Thomas SedranSenior Vice President Group Strategy & General Secretary, Volkswagen AG

Partner and Experts
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)
Prof. Dr. Stefan Levedag, Head of Institute for Flight Systems, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)
Dr. Mark Azzam, Head of DLR Think Tank, Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)

Porsche Consulting
Headquartered in Stuttgart, Porsche Consulting GmbH is a subsidiary of the sports car manufacturer Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG.
Founded in 1994 with a team of four, it currently employs more than 470 people. An internationally active company with fourinternational subsidiaries of its own in Milan, São Paulo, Atlanta, and Shanghai, it is one of Germany’s leading management consultancies. Porsche Consulting advises large corporations and medium-sized companies worldwide in the automotive, aviation
and aerospace, and industrial goods industries as well as financial services, consumer goods, retail, and construction sectors.

Strategic Vision. Smart Implementation.
As a leading consultancy for putting strategies into practice, we have a clear mission: we generate competitive advantage on
the basis of measurable results. We think strategically and act pragmatically. We always focus on people–on principle. This isbecause success comes from working together with our clients and their employees. We can only reach our aim if we trigger
enthusiasm for necessary changes in everyone involved.

Design: Daniel Vogel
Publication: Luisa Boger, Dunia Fernández, Heiner von der Laden, and Darius Selke
A future awaits when flying will be a natural part of our daily lives. We look forward to hearing your thoughts, comments,
and questions to keep the debate around vertical mobility going.
We welcome all feedback at verticalmobility@porsche.de

Porsche Consulting | Vertical Mobility

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“Explore. Dream. Discover.”Mark Twain

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