VIDEO. "It's an opportunity not to close factories": the auto industry will manufacture flying taxis

In a mysterious staging, under futuristic lighting, the Californian company Archer presented its flying taxi named Midnight less than a month ago.

The device seemed to have come out of a Batman film with its shiny, deep black paint, and its twelve motors, six of which were tilting.

Today it is one of the largest car manufacturing companies, Stellantis, which announces the mass production of this new drone in its factories.

With 500,000 cars built per month worldwide, the group is a perfect master of assembly line manufacturing.

But why embark on the mass production of aircraft whose quality standards are much higher than those required of land vehicles?

“There is a need for consolidation.

These taxi drones must be produced, but with a quality found on airplanes, with a level of failure that is nil, while having a number of products that will be that of the automobile, explains Xavier Tytelman, expert in aeronautics.

There is a need for the aeronautical sector to work with the car sector”.

Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares sees it as a "fantastic partnership" hoping to bring the group's skills in "manufacturing systems" to Archer.

Read alsoFlying taxis: “We will have to succeed in democratizing them”, according to an aeronautical expert

Faced with the crisis affecting the automotive sector, this booming market for the eVTOL drone is attracting the greed of historic car manufacturers.

“With the end of the thermal engine, many people will have to retrain, analyzes Xavier Tytelman.

This transition to eVTOL comes at just the right time to avoid closing factories in places where there is industrial potential.

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