Airbus Helicopters pauses eVTOL programme citing lack of tech maturity

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Airbus Helicopters

Airbus Helicopters is to suspend its eVTOL development programme.

Airbus Helicopters will temporarily stop its CityAirbus NextGen eVTOL programme after its flight test campaign is completed, expected late 2025. 

In a statement shared with our sister publication Revolution.Aero, the company said it believes “some of the key technologies”, such as batteries and energy storage, “need to continue to evolve” before it can consider launching an electric air taxi capable of carrying four passengers 80-100km. 

“As part of the company’s constant review of its strategy we have decided to postpone the launch of a UAM [urban air mobility] programme,” the statement read. “As we’ve always said, the development of a viable UAM economy is dependent on many factors and today we still see some of the key technologies that need to continue to evolve.” Testing will continue throughout 2025, it added. 

The programme pause was first announced on January 27th by Airbus Helicopters CEO Bruno Even at a media briefing on the companys full-year order performance. He singled out batteries as a particular weakness among the various technologies that make up an eVTOL.

The CityAirbus NextGen demonstrator was announced back in 2021. At that time Airbus Helicopters had targeted an entry-into-service somewhere around the end of the decade. 

The demonstrator, which was unveiled in March 2024, performed its first flight at an Airbus Helicopters site in Donauwörth, Germany in November last year. 

Despite the pause, Airbus Helicopters said its investment in urban air mobility over the past decade has been “instrumental” to improving understanding of “technologies that are relevant across the Airbus portfolio, in distributed propulsion, energy storage, battery management, etc …”

The company added it will continue to invest in developing technologies that support its decarbonisation plans. This article was first published by our sister publication Revolution.Aero.

Meanwhile, last March, Balkiz Sarihan, the manufacturer’s head of Urban Air Mobility described the rollout of Airbus’ eVTOL is an important and very real step” towards advanced air mobility.

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