The AeroMobil Company develops a new luxury flying cars capable to go on the road or in the sky and the CEO Patrick Hessel speaks about the project.
Hessel speaks about the company’s 2020 accomplishments and its priorities for 2021 and beyond. Hessel, who became the CEO and Chairman of the company in early 2020 is also AeroMobil’s majority shareholder and has been affiliated with the company in that capacity since 2017.
2020 was a productive year for AeroMobil, particularly in the areas of engineering and testing, where we reached important milestones relating to our vehicle design, engineering, and certification testing. This includes completion of all structural tests of its components and systems such as wings, fuselage, empennage, control system, landing gear, powertrain and electronics.
I’m particularly proud of the team’s ability to complete all that was required to commence live flight testing in September and that the flight tests themselves have been highly successful – stated Patrick Hessel.
Our test pilot informs me that The Aeromobil is really easy and joyful to fly and that the takeoff of a flying car is an unforgettable feeling of pure exhilaration. This is exactly the kind of experience we are intending for the AeroMobil owner and our testing shows that we are well on our way to delivering it when the AeroMobil becomes commercially available in 2023.
Hessel continued: the worldwide pandemic created some unexpected challenges for us as it did for so many companies, particularly in the area of evangelizing what’s coming to our target audiences, but I don’t expect this to affect the overall marketplace reception the AeroMobil will receive when we introduce it. Toward the end of 2020 we initiated a significant digital marketing development program, which is just now beginning to hit the market and will be highly visible from now through commercialization, regardless of when we can resume more face-to-face marketing and sales.
In terms of priorities for 2021 and beyond, Hessel stated:
Clearly, our top priorities this year will be the continued refinement of The AeroMobil’s design and finalizing the engineering of key components and subsystems while paying due attention to the ongoing certification process. However, 2021 is also a critical year for us in which we will begin our pivot from our longstanding dominant focus on research and development to having a greater balance between those activities and product management, marketing and sales. Before we know it, we will be into 2022 and into the final countdown to commercially launching this amazing vehicle.
Patrick is an exceptional leader well suited to bringing the world’s first true flying car, The AeroMobil through its final development phase and its successful introduction to the market – said Juraj Vaculík, AeroMobil founder and board member. His entrepreneurial talents and management skill as well as deep knowledge of the carbon fiber technology so critical to the viability of a flying car provide us with the world-class capabilities required to transform our bold vision into a commercial reality. His joining the team was also one of AeroMobil’s key accomplishments of 2020.
Patrick Hessel is a successful entrepreneur, technology company CEO and technology investor with engineering and business degrees from University College London, Cambridge University, the London School of Economics, and New York University-Stern. Prior to AeroMobil, he was the founder and CEO of c2i, a leading carbon-fibre components supplier to major automotive and aerospace manufacturers including Porsche, AMG, Bentley and Raytheon Technologies. He presided over the acquisition of c2i by LG in 2017 which remains one of Slovakia’s largest technology company exits. While leading c2i he was selected as Slovakia’s 2015 Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young. Patrick is also a member of the acquisitions committee of London’s Tate Gallery.
AeroMobil has a decade-long record of innovation relating to mankind’s dream of unbounded personal mobility – said Patrick Hessel, CEO and Chairman of AeroMobil. Since I became affiliated with the company a few years ago AeroMobil has made tremendous strides to finalize the design and begin the process of obtaining regulatory certification of the world’s first true flying car – a vehicle that can transform from a car to a small fixed-wing airplane – an effort I am now proud to lead. When we bring it to market in 2023, it will be both a technological breakthrough and the coolest thing with four wheels ever to be commercialized.
Hessel continued: COVID-19 furthered the trend of a growing digital nomad population where people work remotely while wealthy people move outside of dense cities. The AeroMobil’s unique capability to drive on the road and fly with a flight range of over 750 kilometers or 460 miles makes it a very cool and practical vehicle to move between urban and rural. This is particularly true when traveling in nature where driving makes it possible to walk around once a destination is reached, then being able to go aloft to see the landscape from above and easily access more distant locations. It is also a new trend in the supercar industry where supercars are cool but often times not suitable for adventure travel especially in developing countries which is where a lot of wealthy people have second homes in remote areas.
Source: AeroMobil
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