Electric cars charging infrastructure should also prepare for eVTOLs
In Europe electric charging infrastructure is being rolled out for electric cars. However in the next few years we will see the arrival of eVTOLs (electric vertical take-off and landing) vehicles on the market, these should also be able to benefit from this new charging infrastructure. The usage of private jets on kerosene has come under scrutiny, in the context of climate change. Some are calling to ban them entirely or impose heavy taxes on the usage for short distances. When flying to your destination with an eVTOL , the autonomy of the vehicle still quite limited, it is best to take the shortest path from origin to destination. Making a detour to airports for recharging the batteries, would lead to significant delays. Another option is to recharge at recreational airfields. However, these airfields for smaller airplanes are typically located outside of populated areas, for noise reduction. Such locations are not efficient to install electric charging infrastructure that should be shared by as many multimodal electric vehicles as possible. So we conclude that eVTOLs have basically been neglected in the current design of electric charging stations for cars. This is a missed opportunity, a lack of much needed sustainability thinking. In the knowledge that much of this new infrastructure is being financed by governments, it is a concern for all of us.