Volocopter prototype takes off for the first time

The start-up has developed Voloconnect, an electric passenger air cab designed to connect suburban and downtown areas.

After 17 months of development, Volocopter's new air cab completed its first test flight in May 2022, the company has now announced. The first flight lasted two minutes and 14 seconds, it said. The Voloconnect flight cab tested has a range of 100 kilometers and a flight speed of more than 250 kilometers per hour, it said. In 2026, the four-seater flying taxi is expected to be launched on the market. Various flight tests are currently still underway for this, including standardized low-speed, transition and high-speed tests for automated and later autonomous flights, as well as engine failure tests.

Alexander Zosel and Stephan Wolf founded the start-up in 2011 under the name E-volo. At that time, the company raised initial capital via the crowdfunding platform Seedmatch. In March of this year, the start-up then raised over 150 million euros in a Series E financing round. The Korean company WP Investment as well as Atlantia and Honeywell invested in the process.