Why hasn’t Australia’s eVTOL market taken off yet?

Let’s take a deep dive into some of the reasons Australia’s eVTOL market hasn’t taken off yet, and what key players are trying to make it possible.

History of unmanned aerial vehicles in Australia

While drones and UAVs are a term most people are familiar with, especially within the last few years, the concept has been around for far longer. Think about the Back to the Future era in 1985; this was not only a futuristic fantasy, but one researchers, engineers, manufacturers and regulators were already thinking about for real life.

Australia was one of the nations that spearheaded UAVs within the landscape of everyday use, particularly in drones. The year 1988 was when it first claimed its name on the books, as Australia established a regulatory framework for maintaining and promoting civil aviation safety. In 1995, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) was born. Six years later, in 2001, Australia entered “The Drone Age” because it was the first nation to introduce legislation around UAVs. While the nuances of drones have ebbed and flowed, such as rules about recreational use, chopping and changing, and registration becoming stricter, one thing is for sure: Australia led the charge in making film fantasy into reality.

A Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications report in late 2020 described drones before 2010 to be “costly, cumbersome and difficult to operate” with adoption mainly associated with government agencies, military or hobbyists. Drones in the context of emergency services, film and photography, or even just for fun, were simply not in the cards. Only five years later, drones were considered helpful for more than just military surveillance. A decade later, manned drones like eVTOLs are being brought into the landscape, possibly making the “flying car” dream a reality.

Translation realisation – but why isn’t it really happening?

But here we stand in 2022, where hundreds of “flying car” start-ups have entered the market, yet we still do not see them in the skies. Perhaps there is far too much excitement over the possibility but too little translation realisation.

In September last year, Swinburne University in Melbourne launched an Aerostructures Innovation Research Hub (AIR Hub) backed by the Victorian government. Essentially, the aim is to create the real market of eVTOLs within Australia, but starting with the grassroots, because let’s face it, is there even a market to begin with? This is all according to Dr Adriano Di Pietro, who is the director of the hub.

Together with the full spectrum of the industry – engineers, researchers, educators, students, manufacturers, government – AIR Hub will push to develop a market for manned UAVs to enter into. This will include innovating materials, utilising artificial intelligence, augmented realities and machine learning to create the structures on which the market will rest upon. It is backed by several aerospace giants, such as Boeing, Quickstep, CableX, Furnace Engineering, Shoal and Marand Precision Engineering.

“There’s a lot of research happening in aerospace all the time, but what you don’t often have is a market that is seeding to a point where there’s traction, but there isn’t the translation,” Dr Di Pietro said.

“It’s around that translation realisation piece,” he added. “There is a lot of research being done, buried away in laboratories or at that fundamental level.” Di Pietro emphasised there have been numerous studies and initiatives into innovations like this, but these stem from decades ago with no real progression.

“There are existing businesses running on existing models with existing technology. To see that translation occur, you can’t do that just with research, nor can you do that just with industry,” he said. That is where AIR Hub intends to change the game – by leveraging an ecosystem of collaboration to see the translation occur.

What could it look like in Australia, and what are the challenges prohibiting progress?

While the conversation is claiming headlines, there is more difficulty to be faced with scaling these types of innovations into the commercial field. Creating a new market means considering all the possibilities, whether that’s what standards are used, what laws apply, who builds the infrastructure and where the money will come from.

Fifty-eight-year-old Julian Tol is a long-time space and aviation enthusiast and an expert in business start-ups, tech entrepreneurship and market automation. He founded the company that created the first generation of online mapping systems for companies, including AirFrance-KLM and is the founder of advertising technology company Brandscreen. He said that while every nation struggles with this concept to begin with, there are some to celebrate, such as war-torn Israel and Silicon Valley because “they are so rare”.

Israel has utilised UAVs to create the urban air mobility market, particularly with emergency and delivery services, succeeding long before many first-world nations. Tol said it is even more praiseworthy as the nation battles endless war. Nevertheless, we cannot fall into comparison because every country is vastly different. So, what is left for Australia?

“Australia needs to do many things, but one that may be under-appreciated is UTM (Unmanned Traffic Management),” said Tol. “The physics of flying drones in magnificent swarms are already on display at events like the Tokyo Olympics and Sydney’s Lucid festival, but there’s a lot more to it.” This includes considering the different rules of flight that may apply to other objects, collision avoidance considerations, safe routes versus fast routes, landing rights, fees, privacy, and more.

“I don’t think that the government or CASA should try to innovate in this area (leave that to private companies), but they should have many good lines of communication with centres of excellence for this type of thinking, not only in Australia but around the world,” Tol added. “Ideally, this will set us up as a friendly and smart place to innovate and grow.”

UNSW aerospace design expert Dr Sonya Brown said in an article in September called “Lookup in the sky, it’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s a flying car!” which highlighted other issues to consider, such as the accessibility for people who are not pilots, noise and licensing.

While these experts in their field have pointed out several barriers that must be considered, they all seem somewhat achievable, so what is holding Australia back?

It could just be a people problem

So, if there is bubbling energy to start this new market yet too little action, what is the culprit and who is responsible? There’s “a lot of opportunities in Australia,” said Dr Di Pietro. “We have potentially one of the best opportunities globally for the test and tolling of new vehicles … and we should be pushing to utilise that opportunity. We have lots of space and a very good governance framework.”

But Dr Di Pietro pointed out while Australia boasts a vast land and supportive government, a vital ingredient is also expertise – to which we have very little. “I think the constraints are always the people, and it’s about the skills and the knowledge and then the projects to drive it,” he said. “So, if we don’t invest in establishing capability, people and skills, we’re not going to get there. We’re going to be passive.”

Ben Ribeiro is a 28-year-old living in Victoria. He has worked in Tourism Operations and Management for nine years and is also a fixed-wing recreational pilot, intending to invest in further study. “The last year or two, I have considered that working commercially with drones would be an equally rewarding path,” he told me. “The drone industry is appealing to me because I have a love of aviation and am considering becoming a commercial pilot.”

But the barrier of the dry market remains, and Ben is left not knowing what to do or where to go, in fear he will not have job stability. He said he is aware there are courses to take that can cost up to thousands of dollars, but it is “hard to know if a provider will set you up with the tools and training needed to kickstart a career in the drone industry … I am unsure where drone pilots start their career and maintain cash flow”, he said.

While the drone industry is far more established than the eVTOL market, there is still much to answer. “I would like to see more support in the industry for newcomers, with more detailed and trustworthy information regarding training and how to enter the workforce,” Ribeiro said.

Therefore, Dr Di Pietro’s point becomes clear: how can we even begin to create a market without the people and the expertise?

Must we alter our expectations of what ‘flying cars’ will look like?

Maybe our expectations of what flying cars will look like are just too high, or perhaps unattainable? Deep down, people across the globe know that when flying cars become the norm, it won’t be as simple as a motor vehicle that can become airborne. Even if we do establish a market and find the right people to drive it, we might need to alter our dreams just a little bit.

“We’ve talked for so many decades about flying cars because it’s a concept that we can all relate to making the sky accessible,” Dr Di Pietro said. Maybe we won’t see people leaving their doors and taking off in a car from the driveway any time soon, but the sky will be accessible; an evolution rather than a revolution. “I think critical people may need to reframe what they’re thinking about when they think of flying cars.”

Similarly, Julian Tol believes that the concept won’t be considered a “flying car” by the time we get there, but it will adopt an entirely new name. “Something big is going on, but it’s unclear who (or what) is going to be able to scale commercially first,” Tol said as he reflected on the hundreds of eVTOL start-ups on the map. “This matters because it’s very hard to dislodge profitable companies, even if the new entrant has a better idea; It can be the difference between being right and being rich.”

So, while the flying car dream seems distant, it is still something that pioneers are working towards, even if we are forced to alter our expectations a little bit. While Australia has very little expertise and an even smaller market, concepts like AIR Hub may be the next step towards establishing it; by garnering passionate people willing to address the problem and solve the puzzle.