From horse-drawn carriages to the invention of cars, ships and air balloons, history shows that the change in human mobility happens only around once in a century.
And about 100 years after the start of mass production of Ford Motor Co.¡¯s Model T, the human race is about to witness another mobility revolution, according to a former Toyota Motor Corp. engineer who now heads a startup that is betting on launching a commercial flying taxi service in 2023.
Tokyo-based SkyDrive Inc.¡¯s CEO Tomohiro Fukuzawa is convinced that by 2050 anyone will be able to fly to any destination within the capital¡¯s 23 wards in 10 minutes. The potential is enormous, with global demand for electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOL) set to reach $1.5 trillion (?158 trillion) by around 2040, according to research by Morgan Stanley in 2019.
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