FERGUSON — In the not-so-distant future, when the need arises to get from one side of a bustling metro area to another, one may have the option of hailing an electric air taxi.
A growing number of companies are working to develop such aircraft. And a manufacturer in Ferguson hopes to tackle one of the key engineering challenges: Creating an electric motor strong enough to lift the craft into the skies, and lightweight enough to remain aloft.
Last month at the Paris Air Show, Japan-based Nidec and Brazil-based Embraer announced plans to establish a joint venture to develop motors for eVTOLs, or electric Vertical Take-Off Landing vehicles. The new venture would be headquartered at Nidec’s motor business — Nidec Motor Corporation — in Ferguson, and will mark the company’s largest move yet into the aerospace industry.
“The technical challenges of applying an electric motor in aerospace are huge,” said Greg Gorman, chief growth officer at Nidec Motor Corporation. “We have to get the power that’s necessary — at the lowest weight possible.”
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Nidec supplies industrial, automotive and appliance companies. It makes motors that open sunroofs and adjust seats in cars, and run compressors in refrigerators, and adjust the angles of wind turbines. It makes small motors that make smartphones vibrate.
Nidec and Embraer are hoping to capitalize on the push in the industry to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Last year, the United Nations’ aviation agency — the International Civil Aviation Organization — advocated for a goal of net-zero air transport emissions by 2050. The air taxi motors Nidec is developing would run on lithium ion batteries.
“These are the waves that Nidec is following,” Gorman said. “The industry wants to decarbonize. Needs to decarbonize.”
The joint venture’s first customer, Florida-based Eve Air Mobility, is a spinoff company of Embraer. Eve aims to get its craft into service in 2026. The Eve air taxis will have a range of 60 miles, a spokesperson said. They will initially seat a pilot, four passengers and luggage, but will eventually be made to function autonomously and carry six passengers.
There should be a number of different companies bringing eVTOLs to the market between 2025 and 2027, said Vincent Braley, chief of staff for Nidec’s motion and drives business.
One California-based company, Joby, plans to begin passenger flights in 2025.
Federal regulators are laying the groundwork for eventual approval of eVTOLs — just last month the Federal Aviation Administration released its proposed rules for certifying eVTOL pilots.
In the future, the motors could potentially be used for cargo drones. Further in the future, they could be used to power airplanes — perhaps beginning with smaller, private or agricultural aircraft, Braley said.
“It is a very substantial, high-growth market,” Gorman said.
Braley said Nidec’s new joint venture plans to hire 30 to 60 people in the first two to three years, many of them engineers.
The team will work on computer models of motors, and then develop prototypes, and run tests on those prototypes.
While the joint venture will be headquartered in Ferguson, it’s undecided how much of the research and development work will be done in there, Braley said. St. Louis is an aerospace city, while Embraer has a large presence in Florida’s “space coast.”
Nidec’s motors business used to be a part of Emerson, until Nidec acquired it in 2010. The unit is still located on Emerson’s 200-acre campus on West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson. Nidec has several hundred employees at the site, most in roles that support the larger company’s operations, like accounting and marketing. Others work in the labs there, running tests on motors and components.
Nidec has ventured into aerospace in other ways: It has worked with Tokyo-based SoftBank to create a lightweight motor for an unmanned, solar-powered glider. But the new joint venture is the company’s most significant push, so far, to enter the aerospace industry.
Nidec will own 51% of the joint venture, and the deal is expected to close by the end of the year.