The company was founded in 2017 and launched in 2019 by Satya Chakravarthy and his student Pranjal Mehta. The Chennai-based deeptech startup , with around 70 employees, is part of Kerala Startup Mission and incubated at IIT-M.
This electric-flying taxi can ferry passengers within city limits at 2-2.5 times the cost of a regular taxi fare.
Chakravarthy, a professor at the aerospace department in the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, and the co-founder and chief technology officer, ePlane Co., expects to launch unmanned drones and a two-seater electric plane and ferry cargo in the next two years.
Chakravarthy hopes to join the ranks of global air-taxi startups like Slovenia’s Pipistrel, UK’s Vertical Aerospace and Skyfall, Germany’s Volocopter, Sweden’s Jetson Aero, US-based ASKA and Joby Aviation and China’s EHang.
The electrical vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle could land on terraces of parking decks, dedicated spaces in malls, and other public places, he added.
Satya Chakravarthy, founder ePlane, said “They (landing stations for eVTOLs) will be classified as new helipads. As we increase the number of planes and landing sites, and the network becomes bigger and bigger, we can probably get this differential (cost) down to about 1.5 times. We believe the market is ready, and there are enough people who will be willing to pay for a 10x reduction in travel time.”
ePlane has designed three UAV or unmanned aerial vehicle models—the e6, e50 and e200. While the e6 has been designed to deliver packages weighing up to 6 kg, it can also be used for long-range surveillance.
e50 is India’s first drone equipped with VTOL capabilities, and designed to carry up to a 50-kg payload. “Currently testing is underway. The team is gearing up for untethered tests very soon,” Chakravarthy said. The all-electric flying taxi, or e200, is the flagship which is designed to transport passenger and cargo 10x faster.
