URBANAIR PORT MAKES ITS DEBUT IN COVENTRY

By Stephen Emerson

It was while sitting at his home office desk during a Covid lockdown that Urban-Air Port’s founder Ricky Sandhu noticed the never-ending procession of delivery vans coming and going from the same parking bay on his street.

This window observation, and the subsequent thought that there must be a more sustainable method of delivering goods, set Ricky on the path to develop his urban air concept.

The team set up the world's first Urban-Air Port (UAP) – Air One, in Coventry with more than 15,000 people visiting during a threeweek public viewing.

The UAP site in Coventry is now being dismantled with talks ongoing about its relocation to another venue.

Urban-Air Port designs, develops, manufactures and operates ground, air and digital infrastructure for new forms of urban air transport such as air taxis and autonomous delivery drones.

Its mission is to remove the largest single constraint to sustainable air mobility – ground infrastructure – to create a zero emission mobility ecosystem that will significantly cut congestion and air pollution from passenger and cargo transport.

Ricky, a former architect at London-based Foster+Partners, has worked with airport clients and on city designs around the world.

He and his team are now on a mission to to enable these new modes of transport to flourish and have a target of deploying 200 vertiports across the world in the next five years.

Ricky, who is 44 and grew up in Birmingham, said: "The space was being used dangerously by big vans driven by guys who are in a hurry because they need to get to the next destination.

"I thought there must be a way to make that area safe and take these large moving vehicles away from residential streets and ensure that everyone still gets their packages.”

The Coventry scheme has been aided by a £1.2 million grant from the government. Supernal, Hyundai Motor Group's urban air mobility division, has also invested an undisclosed sum to advance its cargo drone and air taxi technology capabilities.

Drones are already delivering in many cities around the world. However Ricky says that an integrated transport network is needed for the industry to become sustainable.

He said: "Our City Box model is a modular system that allows us to land multiple drones at the same time within which we will then process the cargo and make it available to the consumer. We have a sister product – Docks Box – which plugs into a fulfilment centre and allows logistics companies to use the system without making huge changes to their warehousing.”

While faster deliveries look ever closer, how long will it be before we see short passenger flights between cities and neighbourhoods in the UK?

Ricky believes that within the next five years this could become a reality and at a price point within reach of the average income.

He said: "Having high capacity is important from a cost perspective for airlines and vertiports will be in high demand areas.

"The cost will vary from location to location, but we expect the price will be in the region of £90 to £150"

Britishvolt to build £200m West Midlands scale-up facility to create “battery corridor”

Battery pioneer Britishvolt, which is building a gigafactory in Northumberland, has partnered with logistics real estate operator Prologis to build its UK battery cell scale-up facilities in the West Midlands, home to the internationally renowned battery ecosystem of WMG at the University of Warwick, the Advanced Propulsion Centre and UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC) in Coventry.

With a budget exceeding £200 million, the plan looks to create upwards of 150 skilled, well-paid jobs, unifying the Britishvolt Northumberland Gigaplant with a centrally located scale-up/technology hub.

Paul Franklin, Property Director at Britishvolt, said: “This is another important milestone for Britishvolt, the UK and its world-class automotive industry. I am delighted to see Britishvolt lead the UK’s journey into re-industrialisation with the first full-scale battery Gigaplant. These new R&D and scale-up facilities will help the UK build on its home-grown battery intellectual property and level up the country ready for the energy transition.”

The “Battery Corridor” concept enhances the UK’s existing battery ecosystem –Britishvolt has already developed pre-A battery samples at WMG in Warwick and is scaling up its unique A-Sample cell formulations at the UKBIC.

Andy Street, the Mayor of the West Midlands, added: “Britishvolt’s investment in the West Midlands is another seismic vote of confidence both in the future of our region and our automotive prowess.

“I am determined the West Midlands becomes a global leader in the research and production of state-of-the-art battery technology.”

REE Automotive to build commercial EV plant in Coventry

An Israeli-based automotive technology company and provider of electric vehicle platforms is to build an assembly plant at its European Integration Centre in Coventry.

REE Automotive’s Coventry site will also operate as the blueprint for all future REE Integration Centres, with an expected capacity of 10,000 vehicle sets this year, the company said.

REE Automotive is partnering with Rockwell Automation and Expert Technologies Group for robotics and automated assembly, with the first assembly line expected to become operational in the second half of 2022.

Josh Tech, REE’s Chief Operating

O cer, said: “This is an important milestone on our path to commercial production next year. The automated and connected capabilities at our Coventry site are a great foundation for our global operations, as they will enable us to continuously fine-tune our assembly procedures and rapidly deploy them to other sites.”

The Integration Centre is approximately 130,000 sq ft, includes industry 4.0 technologies and will be partially powered by solar energy.

Peter Dow, REE Vice-President of Engineering, added: “We have a world-class team of highly skilled designers and engineers who are leading the design, development and production of our innovative current and future technologies.”