Uber Elevate

In 2016 Uber released their 98 page white paper called “Uber Elevate”, which highlights the ambitious plan and challenges for the future of on-demand urban air transportation. With contributions from many reputable industry leaders, this white paper is a great resource for helping the Urban Air Mobility (UAM) community build momentum in the field. This report has been invaluable for NexAvian as a startup company trying to make its way through the uncertain landscape of personal air vehicles market.

While the report focuses on the path to market for VTOLS, there are several key elements that can help businesses evaluate the opportunities in the industry. Uber has broken down the report into 4 major sections describing insightful details and challenges that will be faced with the industry.

• Vehicles
• Infrastructure and Operations
• Rider Experience
• Economics

There is a great summary of the market feasibility barriers which helps the readers better understand how the UAM community will have to collaborate in order to push the industry forward. As expected, safety, battery technology, certification, and vehicle noise are among the top challenges.

Since releasing the white paper, Uber has held 3 annual summits to continue the discussions with the surrounding UAM community. This forum has been a great place for leaders and industry partners to collaborate and make some notable strides forward. Although Uber will not manufacture any air taxi vehicles themselves, they are positioned quite well to support the air mobility technologies in terms of user experience and air traffic data. In a partnership signed with NASA last year, they’ve already begin significant steps and investments on the development of the infrastructure that will support the vision of future local air transport.