The electric aviation industry has attracted billions of dollars from investors, but one Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA)-backed executive believes most of today’s eVTOL companies won’t make it.
In an exclusive email interview with Benzinga, Vishnu Ramakrishnan, senior vice president of business partnerships and AAM strategy at ePlane, said the industry is likely headed for significant consolidation as companies move beyond prototypes and into the more difficult phase of certification and commercial deployment.
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“A few years from now, I’d expect a handful of eVTOL companies globally who have the scale and regulatory standing to matter commercially,” Ramakrishnan said. “The rest will have either been acquired, pivoted or quietly wound down.”
The Industry’s Biggest Test Is Still Ahead
Public-market investors are familiar with companies such as Joby Aviation, Inc (NYSE:JOBY), Archer Aviation Inc (NYSE:ACHR) and Vertical Aerospace Ltd. (NYSE:EVTL), which have spent years proving electric aircraft can fly and attracting capital to fund development.
But Ramakrishnan believes the industry’s next challenge is proving those businesses can scale economically. “As the sector matures, the conversation naturally shifts from demonstrating the technology to demonstrating a viable business,” he said.
According to Ramakrishnan, the eventual winners will be companies that can manufacture, operate and maintain aircraft without relying on continuous access to cheap capital.
Investors May Be Watching The Wrong Milestone
While investors often focus on aircraft specifications, battery technology and future air-taxi networks, Ramakrishnan said certification progress may be the metric that matters most over the next two years.
“That’s the filter that separates companies building aircraft from companies building presentations,” he said.
He pointed to consistent testing data and progress through Type Certification processes with regulators as the developments most likely to change investor sentiment toward the sector.
Why Partnerships Could Matter More Than Aircraft Designs
Ramakrishnan also argued that companies trying to build every component internally may struggle to keep pace. “The companies that tried to build everything in-house … will have hit bottlenecks that killed their timelines,” he said.
Instead, he believes successful manufacturers will increasingly rely on specialized partners for areas such as onboard computing, sensors and systems integration.
For investors, the message is simple: the eVTOL winners may not necessarily be the companies with the most eye-catching aircraft. They may be the ones that can navigate certification, control costs and build the partnerships needed to survive the industry’s coming shakeout.
Photo: aerogondo2/Shutterstock
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