Mumbai: In a significant development, startup The ePlane Company confirmed on Thursday about the opening of a testing facility for the electric air taxi at the IIT Madras Discovery Campus in Thaiyur.
The Chennai-based deep-tech startup started its project at IIT Madras as it could have access to design, prototyping, integration, and subsystem testing teams at one place.
India’s Electric Air Taxi Hub at IIT Madras
The campus comprises of 60,000 sq ft and is the country’s first integrated plant dedicated to the serial production of electric aircraft. The IIT Madras location would serve as the engineering hub for the passenger, relief, and cargo eVTOLs, the company was quoted by PTI.
At a single location, facilities such as avionics testing, electric powertrain assembly, composite fabrication, and a dedicated ground test vehicle facility to support subsystem validation and full-scale development will be made available.
The Chennai-based deep-tech startup The ePlane Company is developing India’s first electric air taxi e200X and setting up the facility will accelerate its full-scale e200X prototype production.
“This facility is the engine of our commercial future. With the support of IIT Madras, we have built a space where we can fulfil our vision of making flying as common and affordable as taking a taxi,” said Satya Chakravarthy, Founder and Technical Lead of The ePlane Company.
Chakravarthy said the prototyping facility will support tethered hover testing of the electric air taxi, as the company progresses toward type certification.
NVIDIA-The ePlane Company Partnership
The ePlane Company has partnered with NVIDIA to develop the e-air taxi – e200x. The startup will take the services of Nvidia’s Omniverse Software to construct a highly detailed ‘digital twin’ of the air taxi.
“Proud to announce our association with @NVIDIA
We are building the Digital Twin of India’s 1st Electric Air Taxi using NVIDIA Omniverse to master complex flight physics in the cloud,” the ePlane Company posted on X.