Australia’s Tritium is making a another big splash on the global stage, this time with a world-first flying taxi hub called “Air-One” that was opened in Coventry on Monday by Hyundai partner Urban-air Port.
The flying taxi hub, also known as a “vertiport”, aims to help tackle congestion on the ground and is being billed as part of the future of zero emissions transport.
“Cars have roads. Trains have rails. Planes have airports. Now, eVTOLs have an Urban-Air Port,” said the founder of the urban air company Ricky Sandhu.
“From design, through to fabrication and now into operation, Urban-Air Port has delivered Air-One in just 15 months, setting the standard for deployment globally and opening up a world of possibilities for rapid response air mobility.
While fully-fledged air taxi flights are not yet on the menu for the general public, the hub will be used to demonstrate aircraft control and charging, as well as cargo loading for unmanned drones. Sandhu insists it is just the first and its order book is growing.
Taking centre stage, next to a full-scale model of Hyundai Motor Company’s Supernal Aero eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) flying taxi, is a 350kW Tritium fast-charger.
Future of flight director at OneSky Adam Twidell visited the hub and snapped an image next to the Tritium charger, which is powered by an energy storage battery that in turn had been charged by a hydrogen fuel cell.Â
Using hydrogen – no matter how “green” – is not the most efficient way of keeping a charger powered, although Twidell did point out that the demonstration unit is portable, and it made sense to use hydrogen to allow quicker refuelling of the storage battery for the charger.
“The hydrogen fuel cell and associated battery is a demonstrator that are portable and move around the country for shows and teaching presentations,” said Twidell, who had driven his Tesla Model 3 to visit the hub.
“But if you are making electricity, you may as well use it and in this case, I was grateful for the charge!”
The Air-One hub is open until May 15, 2022 and will deploy to other UK locations thereafter.
In February 2022, Trevor St Baker-backed company Tritium was hailed by president Biden as an example of the “drumbeat of jobs” to be created by a burgeoning electric vehicle industry after the company announced it will build a new EV charger manufacturing facility in the US state of Tennessee.
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.