A Chinese company's flying taxi at the Munich Trade Fair in September. Photo: AFP / Picture-Alliance
The main government-backed aerospace centre is pivoting away from rocket launches to flying cars.
Tāwhaki south of Christchurch was set up four years ago on Rocket Lab's coat-tails to cash in on satellites going up, but has now put that option on the back-burner.
"This opportunity remains valid but our strategy 'flip' to prioritise advanced aviation over commercial vertical launch opportunities reduces risk and amplifies potential," said its business case released this week to RNZ.
Its business case quoted investment bank Morgan Stanley's optimistic take in 2019, "Flying cars could initially gain market share from cars on the road, planes and public transportation. However, it could also open up a whole new world of business across multiple sectors."
The government has also performed this "flip", and put in another $5.9 million to Tāwhaki mid-year, having earlier balked at adding to the $28m of past government funding in the Crown-iwi joint venture, after rocket-launch customers failed to materialise.
Flying cars, pilotless taxis and freight-carrying drones were a more solid proposition, the business case argued.
It has laid out how a four-person taxi drone flying at up to 250km/h could travel between Christchurch and Greymouth or Queenstown and Dunedin 60-80 percent faster than driving and cut traffic jams.
Its plan is to win over eight advanced aviation customers in 2025-26.
But it also still wants to build a vertical launchpad of the kind rockets might use - in addition to the runway it already has - and get two users for the pad this year.
Tāwhaki sees itself as the pioneer for two-to-three aerospace centres in New Zealand, that it estimated would need $50m in extra funding to set up.
Yet drone taxis face turbulence in what is called the "urban air mobility" (UAM) market.
One frontrunner, US firm Joby Aviation, is reported as facing major rollout delays around certification by the Federal Aviation Authority.
It had been aiming for FAA approval by 2023, but has pushed that back to 2026.
Morgan Stanley rowed back its 2019 multi-trillion-dollar forecasts more recently, "a regulatory Mount Everest.
"A pitcher of Kool-Aid is best served with a side of curmudgeon," the bank said - but also said the "sky's the limit".
Tāwhaki's business case quotes the bank's caution, and it said in New Zealand, "'regulation and airspace management are major handbrakes".
The government's new inaugural aviation strategy released last month had little to say about this, other than that integrated airspace planning would take place to support "busier and more diverse air operators" to accommodate the likes of "urban mobility in the form of electric vertical take-off and landing".
The aerospace centre had a win mid-year. It was granted permanent special use airspace for testing new technology at Kaitorete Spit on Lake Ellesmere/Te Waihora in June, which was a "milestone", it said.
The business case done in February also showed it had four commercial customers: Dawn, Kea, Farm Lease and a blanked-out one. The first three do not specialise in air drone taxis.
