Alauda, a company that is pioneering flying electric car racing, has announced it will establish a factory at the new Australia space park in Adelaide, where it says it will make its cutting edge aircraft ahead of the inaugural Airspeeder Exa Series planned for 2022.
The Alauda factory will form part of a dedicated manufacturing facility which also includes quantum engineering company Q-Ctrl, space technology developer ATSpace, and satellite maker Fleet Space Technologies.
The state of South Australia will inject $20 million into the space park, intent on complimenting the Australia Space Agency which is also headquartered in Adelaide.
“As our first electric flying car Grand Prix races draw nearer, we are proud to establish the world’s first purpose-built facility for the production of these pioneering racing vehicles” said Matt Pearson, founder of Airspeeder and Alauda in a statement via email.
South Australia is rapidly becoming a global centre of excellence in the development of advanced space and advanced aerospace technologies, placement at this facility will create world-class opportunities for collaboration with companies at the cutting-edge of their respective fields.
“This, in turn, will rapidly accelerate a mobility revolution and place Adelaide on the map as a world-class centre of innovation,” he said.
According to Alauda, it has gathered talent from the likes of Ferrari, McLaren, Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls-Royce, Boeing and Airbus into its technical team to ensure its success in the sector said to be worth $A2 trillion by 2040.
Indeed, the Airspeeder team has already demonstrated the capabilities of its Mk3 speeders having conducted test flights at speeds of more than 100km/hr in the South Australia desert in November.
The format for the Airspeeder Exa Series involves remote pilots controlling the full-sized aircraft on a circuit, providing a proving ground for and preceding a planned crewed racing format that the company hopes will take place in 2022.
Alauda is also partnering with Telstra to develop 5G technologies that will be required to operate the aircraft at high speed under race conditions. A partnership with Swiss luxury Watchmaker IWC Schaffhausen also allows the company access knowledge on advanced manufacturing and materials.
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.