Eve Urban Air Mobility has bagged an order from Helisul Aviation, a Brazilian helicopter operator, for up to 50 electric Vertical Take-Off And Landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Backed by Brazilian airframer Embraer, Eve is partnering with Helisul to develop Urban Air Mobility (UAM) products and services in Brazil.
Eve is slated to begin eVTOL deliveries to Helisul in 2026 and focuses on creating an ecosystem-wide approach to prepare Brazil for UAM operations. “With cities growing bigger and traffic more and more congested, our partnership to build intelligent solutions and practices for urban mobility in the big cities will improve quality of life reducing air pollution and moving times with door-to-door transportation,” said Luis Carlos Munhoz da Rocha, Commercial Director of Helisul Aviation.
Eve and Helisul are also working together on leveraging Brazil’s existing air taxi infrastructure (one of the largest in the world) and co-creating UAM solutions for eVTOL use. In addition, both firms will now put together a Proof Of Concept (POC) operation using helicopters that will validate parameters t applying to the future eVTOL operations.
Eve is commercialising Embraer’s eVTOL designs and will design, certify, and deliver safe, globally accepted products. “Disruptive Urban Air Mobility solutions can bring the same type of benefits that aviation already brought to longer trips, literally closer to people, giving urban commuters more options to move around the city,” said Andre Stein, President & CEO of Eve Urban Air Mobility. The Proof of Concept for Eve’s human-centred eVTOL design took place in October 2020.
Embraer’s market accelerator programme, EmbraerX, based on Florida’s Space Coast in Melbourne, incubated Eve for almost four years before establishing it as an independent company in October 2020. EmbraerX has been part of the Uber Elevate Network since 2017, and Eve is the first company to graduate from EmbraerX.