FYI - For Your Innovation: Flying into a New Age in Travel with Dirk Hoke of Volocopter

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Welcome everyone to Arc's four-year innovation podcast.

Today we've got an incredible guest.

We've got Dirk Oka, who's the CEO of Volocopter.

Welcome, Dirk.

Thanks for having me.

Hi, Sam.

Hi, Tasha.

So how did you come to join Volocopter?

I guess we start there.

You didn't found Volocopter, but you're leading it into hopefully commercialization pretty

soon.

So how did you find Volocopter?

That's quite a long story.

I try to cut it short.

I knew Volocopter since 2015-16.

Florian Reuter, who was the former CEO of Volocopter, reached out to me because he knew

me from Siemens Times and we met regularly on different conferences and regularly catched

up.

And I was following the UM site already as CEO of Airbus Defense and Space intensively,

also being involved in many working groups at the Volocopter Forum and others, following

up with the institutional side, authorities, to understand better what needs to be done

in order to make urban mobility really a reality, learning a lot about the challenges.

And yeah, so following from the other side, and then when I left Airbus, Florian reached

out to me, first more towards an advisor board seat, and then somehow when I was in discussion

for other jobs, he said, why are you not becoming my successor?

So this was, of course, because I didn't expect him to step down.

Firstly, secondly, I was not prepared for the question.

So I said, please don't turn it down, literally give me some, and I said then give me some

time to do my homework and give you a proper answer.

So I did because I knew the ecosystem and the industry pretty well, and for me it was

more decision, do I want to now continue to work in a big company?

Because I had a lot of offers I had, even had a contract on my desk.

So or should I try something new?

And I was always, yeah, I liked the idea about a new modality coming into the market and

to be part of that.

And I said, if I don't do a startup now, then I will never do it.

So yeah, also after consulting with my family, everyone was supportive.

My daughter said, dad, you have done big companies, you have made good money.

Why don't you do something really cool?

So you can always count on kids to give you the truth.

Yeah, it's very seldom that you get from your 19 year old daughter or 18 year old daughter

at that time, that this is really cool.

So yeah, it played a role.

My whole family was supportive and all the discussion with the board of advisors, with

the team, the management team was very positive.

So then I said, I will do it.

And yeah, I'm really happy to be now part of that team.

It's very visionary, very motivated, highly engaged team, trying to do the impossible

because we really want to fly next year in Paris.

And so Dirk, I think you might be the perfect person to help everyone understand.

Aviation is full of acronyms.

Even just now we're talking FAA and EASA, EBTOL.

So can you kind of just break down the landscape, electric vertical takeoff and landing?

Why now?

What is FAA?

What is EASA?

Why is it so important to understand what those two are?

Yeah, you have two authorization bodies that certify vehicles for civil aviation.

And that's EASA in Europe and FAA in the US.

They have also an agreement to accept the standards.

So normally if you certify by one of these big bodies, it's very simple to certify then

also for the other part and then also get local national authorization to fly in the

national aerospace of other countries.

So what we will do is we will certify with EASA in Europe, we'll then of course apply

for certification by FAA in the US.

With that we have let's say a very broad access to the global markets and national application

processes are then rather fast.

So like you probably have read yesterday, we published that we will have an alignment

between J-CAP, the Japanese authorization body and the asset to make also a very smooth

certification process so that we can fly in 2025 in Osaka in Japan.

So these authorization bodies ensuring that we have a safe transportation in the civil

airspace and as you know so far aircraft are still the safest transportation modality

in the world even in a more than 100 year history.

This was done because they applied very harsh safety requirements.

One of the requirements that is important in the civil airspace is that you can have

only a serious mistake or problem after one billion operational hours.

So this is what we call the safety rule of 10 to minus 9.

So only one mistake every one billion operational hours.

That's quite impressive and this is of course a big barrier to entry.

In order to get certified you need also to pass a couple of other certificates.

So it's not, we cannot decide in our garage to build an aircraft but we have to be authorized

to design and to build an aircraft.

So this is called design organization approval and production organization approval.

And we have already achieved these two very important milestones so that we are allowed

to design and also to build aircraft that can then be used in the civil airspace.

And I guess on that you know Tasha maybe this ties into some of the autonomous work.

One in a billion mistake per operational hours.

How do you get enough data and comfort to accept that that's the true probability of

a mistake when you know obviously you're not going to be flying this aircraft for a

billion hours before it's approved.

So what type of things go on to ensure that type of safety?

So it's a mix of mathematical calculations, simulations and flight tests.

So it's three elements that come together in order to make sure that you can achieve

these one billion hours that say standard.

What you do is that you combine these elements into a simulation in order to understand where

are the weak points of your system which could lead to a critical mistake.

And in this case where you have critical components you have to plan for redundancies.

So in case a certain safety relevant system fails you need to have a backup solution.

So with that you can then increase the safety criteria and you can make sure that you get

a higher valuation towards the 10 to minus 9 rule.

And then it's of course the combination with the checking the mathematical model and the

simulation against reality.

That's why you have to do perform a lot of flight tests.

That's what we start for example again now in summer we will fly thousands of times in

order to make sure that we comply with the envelopes defined by ASA.

And with that we verify our mathematical models.

It's a combination of thorough science work and also mathematical calculation simulation

and then verifying by real fighters.

And you know as you said regulation is such a big barrier to entry for this industry.

Of course like we understand in theory that this is a really rigorous process but what

are the components that actually make this so difficult and what are some of the pitfalls

that you see potentially other companies falling into.

The problem is that in order to be certified you need also certified components.

So it is not that you go into a shop and buy some components build an aircraft and you

get it certified.

So what we do is in order to reduce the time to certification is we use already certified

components from certified suppliers that have worked in the aerospace before.

And with that we can then shorten the time for the certification pathway.

Whenever we bring a new component into an aircraft we need to re-certify.

So this is of course a very very rigorous process and this is something which at the

end leads to long lead times for companies that have never worked in the aerospace.

So you need to be able to understand what are the critical components, how do you certify

them or how do you use certified components and how do you integrate that into a certifiable

system.

So this is a huge barrier.

This is also why components for aerospace are so much more expensive than for automotive

because you have a much more complicated certification process which is adding then on the conforming

process.

How do you say the regulators have reacted?

You know typically I think people think of regulators as extremely conservative.

Now there's this huge wave of new technologies being pushed simultaneously by different parties

all trying to get their attention and approve different types of flying vehicles or flying

designs.

What has the reaction been from the global regulators?

I can only say from my experience since 2015-2016 but this started already earlier.

I think it started mostly when the first toy drones came into the market, when the first

multi copters, so whatever you flew a toy helicopter which is pretty complicated and

then you got the first toy drone and then especially when DJI came with the more advanced

versions into the market you could see and witness how easy it is to fly a drone even

with very difficult weather conditions, strong winds and so on and this was of course one

of the let's say accelerators for the ideas to create this kind of system also for cargo

and for passenger transportation.

This was one of the key points for our founders to look at this technology and see how this

toy technology can be used to accelerate the access to passenger taxis also in the VTOL

area.

From the authorization bodies, certification bodies, the reaction was mixed at the beginning.

Looking at EASA at the beginning of course everyone was like how do we certify these

new vehicles?

EASA was from the beginning very open to it and I even discussed at that time from

Eva's perspective with the bodies and they always said I would love that your team is

as agile as the startup companies that look at us how we can create this education pathway.

So they were open for assessing how this can be certified so they were not let's say blocking

it they were embracing it but of course they were looking also on how to make it a tangible

experience and a safe experience because they don't want to put the reputation of aerospace

at stake so this has to be clear.

Bringing new modality into the market is for both sides a risk because they don't want

to spoil their reputation and of course we want to do business and we need to make sure

that we don't sacrifice safety on the way to it.

It was a good communication from the beginning, good interaction that led also a few years

ago to the first draft of the certification roadmap that is defined by EASA and this

is now leading to a very in my opinion robust plan how these vehicles will be certified.

But yeah but this is only the first step there are still many more steps necessary to make

it let's say a scalable model around the globe because once we are certified this is one

important step but we still need to discuss how we integrate these vehicles not only into

what we call USPACE but also into the ATM, ATM is the air traffic management of the civil

airspace how we let's say regulate the traffic of all the 24,000 aircraft around the world

and this is mostly done still by humans and in order to integrate now 1000 or 100,000

of drones be it for cargo or passenger transportation in the future we need to do the next step

of digital transformation also for the air traffic management and this will need some

time because only then we have a system that can handle the complexity of merging 24,000

aircraft with 100,000 of drone into a safe traffic management.

Another question I had so the physics at least from what I understand they apply the same

way to everyone and there's different use cases but even for let's say fixed wing aircraft

most fixed wing aircraft look similar they might have different use cases and they might

look slightly different but they all look fairly similar when it comes to drones that's

definitely not the case right now there's I'd say a huge variety in what a drone looks

like what an electric vertical takeoff landing aircraft looks like.

Volocopters is I'd say you know unique just like everyone else's why are there so many

different designs and why is Volocopters design the way it is.

Yeah I cannot talk about the designs of other companies and what was the reasons for it.

I think the Volocopter design was done in order first of all to make it fly but the most important

criteria in the design phase was built to certify so I keep it simple make it sure that

it doesn't become fancy just to be fancy but make sure that it can be certified.

So again as I said before use certified components or use certifiable components make sure that

it's simple so that the certification bodies can understand the choice of the components

and understanding also how we calculate the safety standard.

So here we have a clear focus on certification from day one and this is something that in

my opinion also differentiates Volocopter from other more fancy designs.

And also then you have to look at what are the requirements for the market Volocopter

with the Volocity has chosen to fly within the city environment.

So normally in a city environment you don't need to fly 200 kilometers or 300 kilometers

you need to fly 20 30 40 kilometers you have rather a short hop on hop off experience.

So you have total different requirements than you would have in order to fly 200 or 300

kilometers that's why you see the design for the world region is totally different.

Here it is more about the efficiency of a flying medium distance versus the stability

in an urban environment that we want to provide with the Volocity.

So what is what is important to get the public acceptance is you need to feel safe.

So here you need to see 18 rotors and where we already demonstrated that we could lose

easily to and we can still safely land.

It's the noise level compared to helicopters 80 percent lower.

So we could have a normal conversation like that if a vehicle is landing 50 meters beside

us that's not possible with a helicopter.

So reduced noise level most most security and safety and emission free and sustainable.

So these were the main requirements what we said are necessary in order to fly within

a city environment so that we can blend easily into the normal noise that you have in a city.

So if you look in and hopefully you can come and visit us and see demonstration flights

and test flights the frequency of the noise is also in a frequency band that is very acceptable

because it blends into the normal noise level of a city.

So you will not really differentiate our the noise of our vehicles compared to the street

noise that you have from cars.

So we believe it's really acceptable and it's also the feedback that we get from the public

test flights from the audience that was witnessing and listening to the vehicle in operation.

So this is why we designed the vehicle 18 rotors mostly for stability and safety.

And then the region with the wing design it is it is designed to fly efficiently but also

safe.

So we have is we have lift motors and we have push motors.

So we separate we don't have any tilting technology because there you could have easily problems

in the tilting process.

Here we have the lifting process six or more lifting motors and then we have to push a

motor so we separate that vertical from the horizontal movement and whenever you go into

the horizontal movement you go into an aircraft mode where you use the wing and this becomes

very efficient.

So it is an efficient way of moving medium distance.

This is something that we will use with the wheel region up to 200 kilometers are flying

in one hour.

But also to be honest this will not be possible today because the batteries are not good enough

yet but with the batteries that we will get to 2025 we will be able to fly these parameters.

I'd love to expand on that point.

You know we've talked a lot clearly this is it's a it's a very difficult thing to do.

You have to pass these safety hurdles these regulatory hurdles but it opens up a lot of

opportunity and it seems like it's empowered by you know these technologies like batteries

you know in the case of unmanned flight like autonomy that are now available that you know

previously were not.

So it seems like you know I'd love to hear from you sort of yeah what what what was sort

of the key unlock to make this possible for you all and then what's what are you hoping

to do for passengers for cargo like why is let's you know I want our listeners to know

how exciting this is.

We look at you see there are tons of different business cases and use cases.

So first of all maybe I'm not sure that this was clear for that for the years to come we

will still fly with a pilot and only in the next decade we will go into automation and

then into autonomy because the certification pathway it still needs to be defined and this

is pretty complicated because of course you have to overcome a lot of let's say biased

opinions on it and and we have to prove over a certain time that we fly the EVTOL systems

as as part of the ATM as I explained before.

So this will take time but in in the time frame what we will do is we will start with

our two-seaters based on the battery that are available right now and then move into

four-seater we will then go and add to our portfolio the the world region for medium

distances and as you know we have already cargo drone what do we do with that.

We look at the urban air mobility different use cases fly from the airport into the downtown

city mostly it is wherever you have congestion it's adding an alternative for people that

need to be sure about the time of arrival it will be adding it will not replacing any

modality.

We also look at and we have our partner ADAC attic in order to look at emergency response

for example the water city would be in the first step it would bring the doctor to an

accident so that we can have a first response in a shorter time than today and of course

in a sustainable manner and secondly when we have the water region we have a high interest

of ADAC to use that also to transfer to patients to the hospital so first starting bringing

the doctor to the accident next step is not only bringing the doctor to the accident but

also bringing the patient towards the hospital as it is done in many cities of the world

today with a helicopter but of course we want to do it emission free we want to do it with

a much lower noise level and more flexibility so this is a very important use case but then

of course for cargo it could be maritime vessel to shore shorter vessel we see interest

for of course all the logistic hubs of the world we see also use cases even in mining

and other industries where it is about the reliability of the vehicle and the payload

so there are many many different use cases and some of them already tested as you know

from other companies that the transport organs blood and medicine so there are a lot of use

cases that will make our life easier and better so I'm definitely convinced that once you

have reliable vehicles we will have countless of use cases.

And in terms you know when we look at innovation at ARC we often look for you know something

that has a competitive cost dynamics to the systems that already exist and I understand

this is a very nascent industry right so first you're making something possible that previously

just wasn't possible what do you think about longer term sort of you know who will this

be available for sort of what are the cost and price structure dynamics that you expect

in the industry.

You see at the end the business parameters are driving the development of the product

so if we cannot create a viable business case it will be a very short let's say idea of

bringing something new into the market no I strongly believe we can definitely create

a viable business and at the beginning looking at passenger transportation you see there

are a lot of statements out what it should cost and a lot of studies.

I think looking at what the cost of transportation is I think no one expect that it will be the

same price as of a taxi or Uber but of course expectations are high to make it accessible

to everyone which means probably like double the price of a taxi and then if it's in a

congested area where you really gain a lot of time then it can be even higher but we

also have to be realistic at the beginning we will start with if you do a total cost

of ownership calculation the price of the ticket would be much higher with an increasing

capacity with more seats it will then go down very fast and then you once you go into mass

production you have all the balance of scale effects that will easily lead to very competitive

pricing why because the advantage is urban air mobility will lay somewhere between automotive

and aerospace.

Aerospace has very small quantities automotive has very high quantities so we will be anywhere

in between so you have the balance of scale economics kicking in because if you can do

it for aerospace at a very low quantity you definitely can do it for urban air mobility

at a much higher scale so here we believe over the course of time we will be able to

bring the price per seat per kilometer which will be an important indicator down to 3 to

4 euro per seat but not in the first two years definitely not.

And then I think it's also interesting to think about what you were saying about the

noise level right because obviously there is the regulatory approval for the aircraft

itself has to be allowed but in a lot of our modeling depending on the city and areas with

that high congestion you know the landing sites and the economics there can make or

break some of these models as well and so having something that's not you know not in

my backyard getting impossible to have landing pads right in in Manhattan right now I think

there is three landing pads and so what are you seeing what's it is that the same in cities

in Europe and what's the regulatory discussion around increasing landing sites.

We have to find new ways because today the certification of a heliport in Europe or in

Germany takes a long time so here we also need to wait now till people understand better

the impact of operating our vehicles which are totally different than helicopters so

we believe that this will lead to also an adaptation of some of the routes that I use today for

heliports and helicopters because the noise level is so much different and with that of

course the impact for on the on the population they give you an example where we did the

flight test in Paris we invited for the last time a lot of journalists and there was a

bus with an open roof and all the journalists were on top of it and I had an interview

with one of the journalists afterwards and I asked her so how did you experience the

noise level and what do you think about the the noise at takeoff and doing the flight

and then she said I have to admit that I missed the takeoff and I said how can you miss it

you were like 75 meters away from it she said because I was talking to my colleague who

stand by my side so she had a normal conversation with a colleague on the rooftop of an open

bus 75 meters from the vehicle and she missed the takeoff so you get an idea about the noise

level and this is something that that's why I say it can only be a step-by-step approach

believing that we can come with thousands of vehicles in the next two years into the

cities this is not going to happen because we have to demonstrate first so that people

can see and believe that it is accepted before for their daily life and once we have done

that convincing work by demonstrating that it is an acceptable addition to our modalities

and at the end it brings more comfort than stress then hopefully we can scale and increase

the amount of vehicles amount of routes and with that then hopefully come to one day to

the dream that we really have a more open network of vertebrates where we have more flexibility

not only a few routes in within a few cities I'd also love to touch on you you said that

this you know this model is ideal for areas with high congestion one of the a thesis that

we have at arc is that as autonomous mobility on the ground takes off that of course yeah

longer term when every car is autonomous maybe traffic could be more efficient but for the

foreseeable future it seems like you know traffic should increase as you have sort of

that integrated travel if you bring cost per mile down to something that's so low it might

even compete with public transportation and invite more people into the ride hill market

in your conversations with cities with regulators do you feel like that is is that talked about

at all or you know what's their sort of view on congestion you see it depends which city

you talk to and what problem they have if you have at peak time an average speed below

three four miles an hour they're very open to these discussions because they see every

day the loss of productivity in their cities and of course they need to find modalities

that they can add without waiting 20 years for a new metro system or building new highways

or see asking for something that is not going to be applicable in a short term our systems

can be applied to any city in a very short term manner once we we have demonstrated that

we are safe and low level on the noise side so we can be used in order to get at least

certain relief in a very short term manner and as I said we will not replace a metro

system it's a mass transportation is of course the better choice but you cannot have a metro

system in any place of the world in the short term so so we can at least get at one modality

that can improve the situation to a certain extent and can give more choices and without

more flexibility in the end to end transportation but I think also what it needs to be understand

we will add only one element of the transportation of mobility so we have to make sure that this

is totally integrated into the user experience from A to B so that you see what I don't like

is I don't don't like to use four different modalities on my way to a certain destination

and then I have four different booking platforms and then I have to change my plans and I have

to rebook in four different platforms because it doesn't add up anymore so we need also

to ensure that we look from a realistic point of view how we optimize the end-to-end mobility

concept and now we integrate our platform with other platforms so that you have a smooth

user experience because at the end it's all about getting from A to B in the most efficient

and most comfortable and of course also in the most sustainable manner.

And then how about on the business model side when the first airplane makers were making

planes they were also the operators and then that split out over time and right now you

know there I think there's a number of again everyone's kind of going at it their own way

what's the decision process to make and operate versus just make and then sell to someone else

and do you think that that evolves over time or it would be the same throughout?

You described it perfectly because why at the beginning they were operators and service

companies they wanted to ensure the quality of the service they wanted to make sure that

there is no accident so that the rotation cannot be damaged and I think what you see

with our focus city approach now we do exactly the same.

We partner we don't want to do everything ourselves but we will partner and do operation

and service with partners in the local let's say environment companies that know the local

environment and need they understand the problem of the city and how to approach it but they

also of course have the connection towards the different authorities in order to ensure

that we get all the licenses that we need in order to operate.

So yes we want to be operator and service company at the beginning but definitely together

with the local partners to ensure that this is a smooth user experience.

Later on to be honest I cannot tell you yet this depends then on the development how fast

we scale and it is a journey and I think we have to be open for all different kind of

models we might become an OEM I don't see that yet because I think the difference is

that we as I just explained we want to be part of an end-to-end mobility concept and

here this software platform also plays a role and this is maybe also where we differentiate

from other companies in the market because we build our own software platform to ensure

not only that we can monitor the telemetric data of the vehicle and the sensor data but

that also that we can integrate into booking platform that we can integrate into the handling

of the vehicle on the ground all of that can be done in our existing platform today and

this is something that we want to then extend into the end mobility concept.

So I rather see us that we will stay involved over quite a period of time to ensure that

this user experience is as good as it can be.

That makes a lot of sense and I think you know getting to the to the very exciting part

2024 Paris Olympics that's the goal for the launch before we before we get into anything

else who's your dream passenger you know who do you what what athlete are you are you trying

to to get to the stadium yesterday I saw an interview with Steven Spielberg at the Berlin

Arena in Berlin and he said he was asked which movie he liked best and he said you know I

will not answer that question this is the same as he would ask which child I like the

most so you can always lose only lose with these questions.

Of course you saw a lot of articles probably where where it was promoted that we would

like to have the president McCall flying into the stadium and this is something which we

haven't discussed to be honest but of course if I could have a wish list this would be

pretty much on the top of the list ensuring that we have the visibility of starting operation

making sure that everyone can see it's safe to fly it's it's certified and we are licensed

to do commercial operation this would be of course a big step forward to bring urban

availability to life.

You just have to make sure there's a lot of traffic on that day which I'm sure there

will be and have them pull up the app obviously there's a lot to get done between now and

then and it's a pretty near in the future which is even more exciting it's becoming

a reality what what are kind of the hurdles that remain to getting to commercial launch.

There are a lot it's not a walk in the park and we have to admit the challenges are still

super high what we do is we currently in the critical design review of our vehicle which

is an important step for us to get to the final design we will start this year the flight

tests according to the envelopes that are defined together with ERSA so we will do intensive

flight tests in order to verify our models and simulations and with that in parallel

we will apply as an airline operator so we plan to have the air operator certificate

by mid of the new year and we will start flying a fixed wing aircraft in order to get operational

experience which will help us then for the preparation of the AOC the certificate that

we will need to operate the vehicles in Paris.

So this these are some important steps that we will do this year and then next year is

to prepare with our partners the infrastructure making sure that we have the processes in

place in order to operate the aircraft on the ground to do the charging the servicing

so we hope that we can announce the routes together with our partners at the Paris Air

Show this would be something we are working together on to make that possible and then

we have to make sure that we can ensure a smooth operation and we can make it accessible

to as many people as possible during the summer 2024 in Paris.

I'd love to switch gears a bit and talk about cargo you know so the the work that we've

done at ARC has mainly been focused on kind of this last mile of delivery we've looked

a lot at like parcel delivery and food delivery for small packages meals maybe maybe groceries

depending but there's this really long tail of markets that are you know all of a sudden

accessible and addressable by drones so what are the biggest opportunities in your mind

you know is the lot like I'm thinking of maybe parcel is the biggest opportunity but is it

actually that long tail of all these other industries you know emergency services that

sort of add up to something that becomes more exciting.

It's the one billion dollar question and we we have done many brainstorming sessions on

it and we're still discussing it regularly to be honest it depends on the type of vehicle

you design you can because you see like our drone right now with 200 kilo payload with

a range of 30 40 kilometers it is of course already eliminating a lot of use cases because

it's it's narrowing down where it is makes sense to be used.

You will have and then you can see it already today you have thousands of different drone

designs for different purposes the good thing is it will provide probably for every niche

market an own solution and we would see that there's not a standard solution to the customer's

problem so we would see a lot of different variation in order to approach the market

so I don't think we can with one design cope with all the requirements of the different

markets what we will do is we will focus on the most sophisticated markets which is the

higher payload because you will see there are a lot of drone providers let's say below

50 kilos or even below 10 kilos it's even I cannot count the amount of drone providers

that exist today already in the market in different countries and that run successful

tests already all over the world globe but for the 200 kilo plus market it's it's quite

limited because then you need a lot of aeronautical experience you need also to understand the

the different steps from automation towards autonomy it's it's becoming much more complicated

when you fly beyond the visual line of sight and also of course to to get a certificate

to fly over crowds so here we believe we can differentiate because we have the experience

also from the certification process for the passenger drones and in the combination with

what we do on the sensors and on the automation on the software side towards automation and

autonomy on the cargo drone side we have a beneficial overlap in both direction which

helps us to define the use case as I said one of the big use cases we believe in is

vessel to shore and shore to vessel because here if you look at the thousands of container

ship and big logistic hubs and the need of transportation between the vessel and the

harbour here here is definitely already quite quite a significant use case and then it this

is can then be extended to in our case not the last mile concept but rather hub to hub

that's where we can add let's say time critical and expensive freight where you want to be

sure that it's arriving at a certain point of time here we can add an additional option

in order to to make logistics more efficient and flexible got it and on the autonomy side

you know I've heard other other people in the drone industry will sometimes say well

actually for flight autonomy is not the hard piece you know it's really just as you said

sort of getting the right certification the regulation making sure that you can fly beyond

line of sight is that correct in your view what's the most difficult piece piece of that

I think autonomy is not a technology problem again as as for for the passenger drone was

never a technology problem was a certification in public acceptance problem and maybe a battery

challenge but not a problem on the cargo drones it's it's it's it's also I think it

goes you need to be cost efficient you need to be able to deliver a drone that is highly

competitive on price but still very reliable in operation because at the end you need to

operate 24 7 and easy to manage so it means you need just a press of baton and it does

what it's supposed to do you don't want to have highly sophisticated pilots flying these

drones because then you don't get into a useful business case so making a drone that is highly

competitive has a high payload and still is let's say absolutely easy to use that's the

challenge and I haven't seen a lot of drone concepts yet that are there yet a lot of them

are testing but I haven't seen one being perfect yet so we that's why we also continue to

to test we will fly in Saudi Arabia at Neum in May doing test flights with the photo drone

version 2 we continue to work with DB Shanker and what we also do is you would see we will

work on a new concept that will be optimized along the criteria that I just described

so you would see that we will have an acceleration drone still being prototyped this year which

will be much more competitive on price and towards the criteria of our our customers

and when you say you know a lot of what you see sort of isn't quite there yet on this

ease of use and sort of like fully like it sounds like you're saying it's a fully automated

process from start to finish you're saying that there's still you know humans in the

loop at times where there's not ideal or what's what's what exactly isn't there yet in your

mind I think there will be humans in a loop for quite a while also on the on the cargo

drones just to I think what would be different is you will have more drones per person to

be controlled and monitored but but they will still be humans at least in our case we believe

that we will continue to use humor humans in the loop for quite a while I know from

a lot of different models across the world and we are in contact with a company in China

that is successfully for for years already doing agriculture drones and also food delivery

drones so there are use cases in place where where people already did some some significant

progress but these are very small drones which is where where a lot is done with off the

shelf components and it's a totally different use case than than what we aim for so you

actually have this advantage because since you've already you're already used to building

these larger aircraft that tend to not have off the shelf components gotcha great Derek

is there is there anything that you think we miss that people need to know about Volocopter

before we wrap up here yeah I think it's it's what I see in many of the discussions around

the world that a lot of people still believe that air taxies will only fly in 2030s and

beyond and even if we tell them we fly next year in Paris they look at us like we're

a bit crazy and so I think it is it is important to really understand we're getting there it's

only 16 months from now and we also even if there would be a problem we don't see that

we will miss 24 so it 24 will be the first year of commercial operation of evidols globally

and then it will be on us to prove that this is efficient that it is reliable safe and

that it's also fun to use and with that we already hope that this opens then a total

new market that people will embrace it instead of rejecting it and and yeah I'm very excited

that we are part of that story that we will enable people to get access to it next year

we're excited to and you know we're excited it's always exciting to see the the modeling

work that we've done and the analysis then you know the people doing the real hard work

like you making it a reality and seeing that theory meet practice and I feel like the evolution

here right you saw it's like electric cars are now in and like the James Bond movies

and now we'll have the Olympics and then we'll just wait on the next mission impossible for

the for the volo copter appearance yeah I don't really looking forward to have you on

board looking forward that did you tell us how you like it and yeah whenever you're

in Germany please come and visit us we will fly intensively this year so you will have

a chance to see the world city or the world region flying I think that's better than any

movie or to to get a PowerPoint presentation so hopefully you can witness how much fun

it is to to see these vehicle flying and and yeah hopefully we can can welcome your board

of such a vehicle in 24 25 sign me up thanks thanks arc believes that the information presented

is accurate and was obtained from sources that arc believes to be reliable however arc

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