Package delivery by electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft? An attractiveness assessment

Electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOLs) are gaining growing interest recently. However, limited attention has been paid to the prospect of using eVTOLs for package delivery. To fill this void, this paper explores the attractiveness of eVTOL-based package delivery in terms of cost, energy consumption, and CO${}_2$ emissions. Given that eVTOLs cannot take off/land at customer doorsteps, a two-leg system design is proposed and formulated as an optimization model. To implement the model, we consider multiple plausible eVTOL and ground vehicle types, their cost economics, and energy use and CO${}_2$ emission characteristics. Applying the model in the Chicago metro region, we find that the attractiveness of eVTOL-based package delivery depends critically on the eVTOL and ground vehicle types. With an appropriate eVTOL-ground vehicle combination, eVTOL-based delivery can be attractive compared to van-only delivery in terms of total shipping cost, but not necessarily so from the energy and emission perspectives. This highlights the need for future R&D to further enhance the energy efficiency of eVTOLs. When designing eVTOL-based package delivery systems, the importance to account for the potential interactions between eVTOL traffic and commercial air traffic should also be recognized.