Embraer’s Eve Air Mobility has announced a deal with leasing company Falko for potentially 200 eVTOLs. The deal is worth $600 million at retail prices, such as these are. This is a superb way to start the year!
JP Morgan offered this chart to demonstrate Eve’s orders to date. JP Morgan notes estimates Eve order book at over 1.900 aircraft and worth about $5.6 billion. Deliveries, they note, should start in 2026.
The Eve/Falko Letter of Intent, which “contemplates a potential order for 200 Eve’s”, is portrayed as a partnership that “will begin by establishing a working group to collaborate with Falko’s existing operators to develop initial route networks where Eve’s aircraft can be deployed in early adopter markets. Additionally, Eve’s agnostic product portfolio of next-generation air traffic management software, service capabilities, and fleet operations services will also be introduced to create a safe, scalable network for each Falko lessee using Eve’s aircraft.”
Deal already included in December presentation
Although announced today, the deal was already included in a presentation on December 21, when Embraer announced that it would spin out Eve and partly sell it to Zanite. However, Embraer will keep eighty percent of the equity in the new company. Embraer, through its Eve UAM, is now moving strongly into the industry leader. This role means it becomes the most attractive OEM for more business, but also aligns the supply chain to its requirements. With vertical integration via its traffic management solution, Embraer also cements its influence beyond Eve.
If you run a company that produces batteries, for example, where would you take your newest ideas and products? The best and brightest ideas and products invariably follow an industry leader. We can see that with Airbus and Boeing – new technologies are focused on their needs and a good example would be engines. Embraer is going to benefit the same way here.
Even if the eVTOL market slows down (doubtful, but it could happen) Embraer should remain in front. The technologies it develops on the way to 2026, ensure it is able to pass on lessons learned to their planned aircraft that deploy hybrid technologies. As the saying goes, “Nothing succeeds like success”.
What we are seeing, in our view, is a recovery at Embraer that continues to deploy its creative engineering talent – and doing this outside the traditional commercial aviation arena. It will remain closely involved with Eve even after the sale to Zanite, offering its vast engineering resources to the initiative. This is one of the reasons Zanite was keen to get the deal with Embraer done.
Of the airframe OEMs, it seems to have embraced the eVTOL segment fastest. In doing so, it has moved ahead and won orders. These orders provide Embraer with much-needed flexibility to execute other projects. In the same way that Airbus, for example, is able to use its order book to fund new projects like the A350F. Â
