Chauffeurs to turn pilots as air taxis get set to go green in TN

The concept of air taxis has been in the works since 2017, but the recent flooding in Chennai and Tamil Nadu could give a fresh perspective to the concept of airborne commuting solutions. The country’s first electric flying taxi is being developed in Chennai by a start-up that aims at transforming the mobility landscape.

The ePlane Company was incorporated by Satya Chakravarthy, a professor at IIT-M along with Pranjal Mehta (IIT-M grad and co-founder) with a seed funding of $1 mn. The start-up that has been working at “building a compact electric flying taxi for 10X faster commute in cities” was awarded ‘Innovative and Promising Startup’ by the CII Southern Region.

The concept came into focus once again when it was mooted as a viable option of transportation in the backdrop of the recent flooding. “Compact roof-to-roof e-planes” can leapfrog technology, cutting timelines in traffic. This mobility solution is relevant for a place like Chennai, which has been facing problems of inaccessibility and traffic bottlenecks. e-plane will make it possible to travel from say Kovilpatti to Madurai,” says Prof Chakravarthy, who is also founder, National Centre for Combustion Research & Development.

Both the professor and former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan spoke at the same event where Rajan added that central and state regulations needed to be tweaked to support aerial and aerospace technology. In his closing remarks at the MCCI event, Rajan added the government must be broad, open-minded in facilitating collaborations between industry and academia.

E-planes can solve the traffic problems in India and TN’s automotive base provides a huge opportunity and in this country, people are willing to pay 3-5 times more for embracing such a new technology, signed off Prof Chakravarthy.