Great article. The only off note was the final one, with the oddly lawyerly non-answer to the death zone question. That sounded like it was coming from a company or industry spokesman rather than an independent analyst.

thanks - very informative article! Good for investors to get a more realistic view. bad for the enthusiasts. No answer for the death zone nor where the power for eVTOLs should come from. At least, this professional admits, that most eVTOL designs are more power-hungry than even helicopters. So, let's observe the market, and thanks for this reality check. Sometimes reality is cruel, but better being hard on a technical side than failing in safety of the eVTOLs.

Anything with wings is an aeroplane, so disqualified as a ''Taxi,'' ditto anything as wide as an aeroplane as it will be just as handicapped.
That leaves? Not much.

Aircraft used to be manufactured in the tens of thousands per year. They were much simpler then, but mostly it was the demand. There may be enough demand for one or two companies to deliver thousands of units a year, but not a dozen companies. (It reminds me of the early days of the PC industry, when something like 20 companies were all planning to grab 30% of the market.)

Very cool article! I think these will be as common as helicopters soon, and even though they will have a death zone, so do helicopters, and these are FAR more reliable.

Since all these vehicles shown violate the laws of lift, physics by being low efficiency, they will all fail as you can't give up that much efficiency in an EV.
1-2 large rotors or props is the only way that can lift enough to pay. Note the Mars Helicopters was one because they had to pick the most efficient way.
That it is dynamically stable, no computer , etc controls needed as with no input, it'll just hover in place. Just an autopilot telling it how high, direction to go and where to land.
It can lift 3-6x as much load as these others shown because small many tipped rotors turning fast suck lift wise. Noise isn't good either.
The other and simple way is make STOL aircraft that can take off, land in 2-3 plane lengths. Another is a Gyro style craft.
But what won't make it are small prop multicopters.

Alternatively, while eVTOL looks at intra-city hops, others may (should) explore inter-city (regional) travel, afforded by various levels of eSTOL. eVTOL sacrifices many valuable mobility metrics: short ranges; small payloads; low speeds; in addition to adding complexity, need to transition (dead mans zone), and high energy consumption (thus higher operating costs, +/or higher ticket prices). Perhaps have a look at the paper "NASA Seeks to Increase Accessibility of Regional Air Travel" at https://sacd.larc.nasa.gov/ram/.

These are are going to be loud, thus make the urban environment a little more unbearable and only be used by the wealthy.

I just love the idea of VTOL ait taxis but shudder over all the models that have exposed lift propellers; very dangerous for the customers. At least helicopters have their blades above head height.

@ jerryd: thanks for your clear words. we may love futuristic EV-designs, but at the end efficiency (=affordability) and simplicity (=safety) will win. obviously multiple redundancy adds cost and lowers efficiency. and this is worse in designs with many small propellers as many eVTOL concept propose. we need less complex aircrafts that are more efficient, more eco-friendly.