“ Two people to go to Costco and load up on toilet paper ,” said Tibbitts .
The vision of the company is , “ To create the most compelling personal air vehicle company .” Tibbitts said that he wants something that is unique , yet high quality in the market , “ I like the idea of following the Tesla model which allows you to develop something that is very different than what people are used to . But people aspire to drive a Tesla . We want to be the Bugatti of the air ; we want the name ZEVA to be synonymous with these types of vehicles .”
So how much will it cost for early adopters to have the convenience of personal air transportation along with the quality of a Bugatti ? Tibbitts said , “ The early adopters and one-percenters will pay $ 250,000 .” He noted that with volumes of scale , they will bring that cost down below that of an electric ground-based vehicle . He did say , “ However , we are talking about aviation grade components . They are highly sophisticated but have fewer components that can break with catastrophic failure .”
One might wonder where to park their personal air vehicle . SkyDock™ Vertical Docking is a patent pending concept by ZEVA AERO that would exist in an urban environment . One vision of the dock has it attached to the side of a high-rise building . Tibbitts said , “ You could step off your deck and go .” There is a second vision for a rooftop landing station , like a heliport , that would allow the pilot to dock on the roof . The term for the eVTOL landing surface is called a vertiport , a name that may be new to some , but Tibbitts said , “ has been bantered about for a while .” He added , “ It morphed from heliport to vertiport because it is a take-off and landing zone that is not restricted to helicopters but uses all types of vertical take-off aircraft that utilize the facility .”
In a rural or suburban environment , Tibbitts envisions having a shared vertiport within a neighborhood with tract homes and limited space on either side . Or in his case , in a rural environment , he said that the vehicle storge could be in the driveway or next to the garage , “ I live on a plot of land with some elbow room ; in my situation , I could do that ,” Tibbitts said .
One of the innovations for eVTOL is success with batteries . The vehicle is charged using electricity and has battery cells , “ similar to Tesla ,” said Tibbitts . He said their system has redundant packs of batteries ,
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