Uber Elevate Summit 2019
The Uber Elevate Summit 2019 brought together 1200+ attendees for 2 days of technical sessions, hands-on demos, and evening networking events in Washington DC. Use the links below to access archived talks.
Welcome address for the third annual Elevate Summit and look-ahead to 2 action-packed days from Elevate's Head of Product and Summit MC, Nikhil Goel.
Nearly 3 years since the publication of the Elevate Whitepaper, the future of on-demand urban aviation is closer than we ever thought. Hear the Head of Elevate, Eric Allison, and Elevate executives Nikhil Goel and Stan Swaintek detail our plans for 2019 and beyond as we look to collaborating with government and industry to knock down the most critical barriers—building and beginning to certify electric VTOLs, integrating a robust airspace management system, and making multimodal aerial ridesharing accessible to all—in pursuit of imminent vehicle demonstrations and launching a commercial air-taxi service over the next 4 years.
Uber is thrilled to be working with the FAA and regulatory bodies all around the world to ensure that together, we are ready to deploy urban air taxis in a way that is safe, scalable, and collaborative with all levels of government. Kate Fraser, Uber's Head of Aviation Policy, will showcase the regulatory path to market for urban air mobility (UAM) in top Uber regions globally, as well as the encouraging progress the industry has made to date.
Since announcing our first 2 Uber Elevate launch cities of Dallas and Los Angeles, we've made significant collaborative inroads as an industry across the US government. Hear our regulatory partners across the FAA, US Department of Transportation, and NASA discuss their approach to certifying new aviation technologies for safe operation here in the United States.
The discussion will touch on key aspects of eVTOL aircraft certification, pilot training, urban ridesharing flight operations, UAS Traffic Management (UTM), and particularly on the collaborative work being done between industry and regulators to ensure new technologies are thoughtfully and safely integrated into existing regulatory frameworks.
The DOT and FAA have been critical leaders and partners for enabling urban air mobility across US cities, and Secretary Chao understands the critical role of the department in ensuring the safety of our country’s transportation system. In this keynote, Secretary Chao will present her and the department's focus on supporting this burgeoning industry.
Safely integrating low-altitude passenger- and cargo-carrying aircraft into the national airspace is a complex challenge that will require coordination between numerous players across industry and government. Hear the leaders within these organizations discuss the most critical issues and the progress toward safe, interoperable, low-altitude airspace.
As Acting Administrator of the FAA, Dan Elwell has embraced technological advancement and innovation, and worked to accelerate new aviation technologies. Acting Administrator Elwell will give remarks outlining the steps the FAA is taking to make sure that new aircraft like eVTOLs can be safely brought to market in the United States with Uber Air.
At Uber, we put safety at the heart of everything we do. Over the last year, we've raised the bar on safety by unveiling new features that help protect all our customers. Uber's Chief Legal Officer, Tony West, will discuss our company-wide commitment to safety, particularly how safety is being integrated into the launch of an aviation service for our riders and cities.
Elevate is ensuring that safety is woven into every aspect of our future Uber Air operation. Uber is facing these considerations for the first time, but we are standing on the shoulders of decades of commercial aviation. In this panel moderated by Uber's Chief Legal Officer, Tony West, leading aviation safety experts from around the world, including our own head of safety John Illson, share lessons learned that can and will be applied to urban aerial ridesharing at scale.
The Uber team has spent the last year working with countries around the world to determine our first international Uber Air market. Join us as we announce our final decision in tandem with leaders across industry and government from our chosen country.
Uber has, over the last year, begun sharing our vision for urban aviation at scale with regulators, policymakers, and industry champions around the world. Hear directly from aerial ridesharing advocates across Australia, Brazil, France, India, and Japan as they discuss their excitement for the future of aviation and steps countries are taking now to ensure that they are prepared for this future.
In the last year, Uber and its partners have collaborated toward meaningful progress in electric aviation. Director of Vehicle Engineering Mark Moore showcases the collective efforts of the Uber Elevate Partner Network innovating across design, analysis, and testing.
In 2018, Bell revealed its first ridesharing VTOL cabin mockup. Earlier this year, Bell publicly unveiled Nexus, its first ridesharing VTOL vehicle. Hear Bell EVP of Technology and Innovation Michael Thacker talk about new developments they are making as a world leader in vertical flight aircraft.
Boeing is making big, bold bets in this electric aviation frontier. Already, they are paving the path forward through their 2-seat electric VTOL demonstrator PAV. Listen to Boeing Vice President and General Manager for NeXt, Steve Nordlund, talk about these innovations and how they'll shape a safe, reliable, and affordable Uber ridesharing vehicle.
Founded to cultivate disruptive innovation, EmbraerX has been developing an eVTOL solution for all. EmbraerX CEO Antonio Campello will reveal his company's latest vehicle vision with an emphasis on simplicity, intuitiveness, and community friendliness. Using their 50-year history of aviation excellence, EmbraerX is working hard to ensure that their eVTOL synergistically aligns with air traffic management services.
Since being announced as an Uber partner in 2018, Karem has continued its positive momentum on the development of its eVTOL, the Butterfly. Hear CEO Ben Tigner talk in-depth about the design and testing work their team has conducted to make their vehicle real.
Pipistrel Vertical Solutions was announced at the Uber Elevate Summit 2018 as Pipistrel's dedicated arm for eVTOL development. Since then, the team has tested multiple systems individually in preparation for a full-scale demonstrator. See and hear these testing efforts from Pipistrel Vertical Solutions CEO and Director of R&D, Tine Tomažič.
Scott Peters has been the US Representative for California's 52nd congressional district since 2013 and previously served two terms on the San Diego City Council from 2000 to 2008. Rep. Peters will discuss his support for innovation for the transportation sector, and the role that both municipal and federal governments can play in accelerating new technologies in urban aviation.
Head of Elevate, Eric Allison, announces Uber Elevate's new vehicle partner - Jaunt Air Mobility, LLC
At Uber, we're obsessed with providing the best possible experience for our customers. Together with Safran Cabin's design and innovation studio, ZEO, we have designed an eVTOL passenger cabin truly from the inside out, with features that extend across multiple airframes. Get an exclusive look at an incredibly thoughtful cabin experience, the first-ever purposely designed for aerial ridesharing with Uber Air.
Closing remarks and logistics for the evening celebration at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi welcomes Elevate Summit 2019 attendees to the evening celebration to cap our first day's events.
Ross Perot Jr., Chairman of the Perot Group and Hillwood, is a key partner for Uber Elevate in our launch city of Dallas. Ross is perhaps best known for being the first to circumnavigate the world in a helicopter—that helicopter, a Bell 206 L-1 Long Ranger II, the "Spirit of Texas," is on display at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Ross will discuss Hillwood's commitment to UAM in North Texas while taking an aviator's perspective on the Infrastructure needed to allow UAM to reach its full potential, along with the benefits UAM brings to Hillwood's developments. To end, Ross will touch on the need for strong partnerships in this space to make this UAM future possible.
Uber Eats delivered nearly $10B worth of food last year worldwide and is among the planet's largest food-delivery services, but we are just getting started. Eats' Senior Director of Business Development, Liz Meyerdirk, talks about some of the big, bold bets Uber is making in the space, and Uber's Head of Flight Operations, Luke Fischer, will showcase our progress in the FAA's Integration Pilot Program in particular, as we look to the air for the next Uber Eats growth opportunity.
Since the first Uber Elevate Summit in 2017, the private sector has invested billions of dollars in urban, on-demand aviation—the environment has never been more ripe for capital infusion. This panel showcases some of the foremost investors in the space and, more importantly, future opportunities across global private equity, venture capital, real estate, and institutional investing in the months and years ahead.
Rachel Holt, head of Uber’s new mobility offerings, reveals new technological developments that will help make e-bikes and e-scooters a staple of urban transportation.
Uber announces Related as a preferred development partner and unveils designs for an Uber Skyport at Related’s CA-based development, Related Santa Clara.
Witness the unveiling of several breakthrough Skyport Mobility Hub concepts, facilitating the multi-modal future between ground and air mobility; designed and presented by some of the top architecture and engineering minds in the industry.
Uber announces Signature Flight Support as an infrastructure operations partner! Signature Flight Support is the world’s largest ground based service provider for private aviation. They create partner options for operations and infrastructure at 200 locations across the US, providing scaling opportunity for on-airport Skyport infra and operations. Signature will also provide ground operations services for our Copter service in NYC.
Uber is developing testing and analysis methods for li-ion cells and battery packs suitable for aircraft applications. These include cycle testing profiles consistent with expected pack usage, and safety testing methodologies. We will present initial test results.
At Uber, we believe the future of transportation is shared, electric, and automated. Automation at scale requires close partnership with automotive manufacturers, suppliers, and other technology companies. During this talk, Advanced Technologies Group leaders Eric Meyhofer and Raquel Urtasun will discuss what it means to develop self-driving technology at scale at Uber and how the Advanced Technologies Group is bringing this vision to life.
Elevate vehicle requirements are shaping network efficient, quiet, and safe eVTOL that maximize system economic and market feasibility.
Integrating performance, operational, and economic considerations, we look at holistic vehicle-network simulations with Flux Optimizer across aircraft requirements and cities to capture different levels of Total Addressable Market (TAM). System-level simulations are shown to quantify how Uber Air evolves from launch into a mass transportation market.
EVTOL vehicles on the Elevate network will be purposefully designed to be quiet. Since last year, Elevate's Vehicle Systems team has matured their variable fidelity framework to enable early acoustic decision-making. See why eVTOL vehicles can be fundamentally quieter than today’s helicopters.
Urban aerial ridesharing will require a nuanced approach to address the acoustic impact of new aviation operations above our communities. Uber will introduce Project Symphony, a combination of data collection, predictive analytics, and simulations that uniquely model the variation in existing urban soundscapes and the acoustic impact of proposed eVTOL operations using a new metric: time-varying loudness (TVL).
A look at the unique challenges of creating and certifying a cabin for the air taxi market. Optimizing the space while working to achieve airframe compatibility across multiple manufacturers—with a focus on comfort and high reliability for high-throughput turnaround operations.
For urban aerial ridesharing to be feasible at scale, eVTOLs must have favorable economics vis-a-vis ground-based transportation. Mark Moore will detail direct operating costs for eVTOL aircraft operating on an urban air mobility network and the criteria for which we're designing the Elevate Network.
Establishing Uber Air system-wide safety means designing and certifying eVTOL with the right airworthiness strategy. Rather than merely qualitatively addressing airworthiness principles, Jacek will quantify eVTOL complexity, criticality, reliability, and safety targets. Hear about continued challenges in community acceptance, safety innovation, and certification uncertainty and how Uber is tackling these challenges with a data-driven approach.
eVTOL aircraft require unique certification, which many have considered to be the largest obstacle to rapid development of a UAM system. This informal discussion with developers and regulators will look across different eVTOL examples to better understand their certification basis and whether they fit into Part 23 or 27 type certificates.
Understanding demand is key to designing an effective aerial ridesharing network at scale. Listen as we discuss data collection, model development, calibration, and validation on the size of induced Uber Air demand.
Uber is no stranger to building and scaling products globally. Hear Hasrat, Shabnam, and Kevin explain how the progression of Uber's core app and the maturation of UberPool have paved the way for the first implementations of Uber Air.
Uber's airspace operations use a sophisticated suite of automation capabilities known as Elevate Cloud Services (ECS). Find out more from our Director of Airspace Systems, Tom Prevot, as he explains core ECS functions, critical airspace concepts, and principles for safely managing aircraft on the Uber Elevate Network.
Industry-wide progress in airspace management is being spearheaded by multiple pilot programs nationwide. Listen to perspectives from this panel of industry leaders working together with federal, state, and local governments.
Witness the continued unveiling of several breakthrough Skyport Mobility Hub concepts, facilitating the multi-modal future between ground and air mobility; designed and presented by some of the top architecture and engineering minds in the industry.
Welcome and overview for track.
Discussion of propagation resistance and rate testing methods and analysis approaches, including a presentation of sample test results.
Propagation testing requires initiating thermal runaway reactions in trigger cells. In this session, we will compare a variety of methods based on severity and fidelity to field failures.
Informal discussion regarding a framework for safety testing means of compliance.
Sharon Pinkerton was named Senior Vice President, Legislative and Regulatory Policy for Airlines for America (A4A) in February 2011, and leads policy development on legislative and regulatory matters, working with Capitol Hill and the administration. Before joining A4A, she served as Assistant Administrator for Aviation Policy, Planning and Environment at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Prior to her appointment at FAA, Pinkerton was transportation counsel to House Aviation Subcommittee Chairman John L. Mica (R-Fla.) and served on Capitol Hill for nearly 10 years. Sharon will discuss how Uber and the urban air mobility industry can learn from the commercial aviation industry and how the federal government can help accelerate these goals.
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Aviation and Space, and a Congressional leader on issues related to the global competitiveness of America's aviation and commercial space industries. Hear Senator Cruz talk about his excitement for Elevate and, more importantly, the role that legislators can play in supporting innovation in the aviation industry, particularly in Texas, where Elevate looks to launch Uber Air in Dallas by 2023.
Michael Ronen is a Managing Partner at the Vision Fund, responsible for investing the $100B fund in the areas of disruptive transportation and logistics. This keynote centers on the future of mobility and the many innovations powering an electric, autonomous, and shared future for transportation across the world.
To close the 2019 Uber Elevate Summit, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi showcases the future of the Uber platform.
Closing remarks and logistics for the evening Happy Hour