Fully electric aircraft: Chinese group wants to buy flight taxi company Volocopter

The Chinese group Wanfeng wants to buy the insolvent flight taxi manufacturer Volocopter for ten million euros. This emerges from a stock exchange notification from Wanfeng before the contract was concluded. “Volocopter is currently not taking a position on this,” said a spokeswoman for the company from Bruchsal in Baden.

According to the message, the business is handled by a specially founded subsidiary based in Berlin, which is assigned to the Austrian aircraft manufacturer Diamond Aircraft. This is 100 percent owned by Wanfeng. Several media reported on Wednesday. Last week, the “Wirtschaftswoche” had reported the Chinese interest.

Around 450 employees are released

Volocopter had submitted an application to open the insolvency proceedings on Christmas Day. The district court of Karlsruhe appointed Tobias Wahl from Anchor Rechtsanwälte as the provisional insolvency administrator. He wanted to develop a renovation concept by the end of February and implement it with investors.

At the beginning of March, the district court opened the bankruptcy proceedings. At a meeting at the beginning of last week, all employees were informed that they were released with immediate effect. According to DPA information, around 450 people are affected. According to “Wirtschaftswoche”, around 160 of them are to be continued.

Sample approval for passenger operation is missing

Already in autumn it became known that company boss Dirk Hoke should take the lead at the technology group Voith in Heidenheim at the latest from April 1, 2025 at the latest. Ex-Daimler boss Dieter Zetsche should seek a successor to Hoke as chairman of the advisory board at Volocopter. So far, nothing has happened here with a view to the uncertain future of the company.

The start-up, which was founded in 2011, actually wanted to promote passengers with vertical and landing fully electric aircraft. So far, however, a model approval from the European Air Security Agency.

In mid -February, Volocopter announced that he had completed 75 percent of the required audits. At that time, the industry pioneer announced a partnership with Jet Systems Hélicoptères Services. According to the information, it was about the delivery of two Volocity flight taxis. However, the signed agreement was not more than a declaration of intent.

CSU politician Dorothee Bär had brought the flight taxi industry into the focus a few years ago and triggered a small hype. But the industry is fighting problems. Most recently, the electrical aircraft manufacturer Lilium from Bavaria had registered bankruptcy for the second time. A lawyer of the Anchor lawyer lawyers also manages the procedure at Lilium.

In autumn, the company had registered bankruptcy for the first time because the money was missing for the development of production. On December 24th, the Mobile Uplift Corporation investor consortium signed a purchase contract for the business assets of the two subsidiaries Lilium GmbH and Lilium Eircraft and announced 200 million euros in fresh money.

Lilium and Volocopter had always searched for financial support in the past. However, government aid failed to materialize. Volocopter ultimately received money from investors last year. But that wasn’t enough.

The explanation of the bankruptcy said that in the past numerous financing rounds had promoted the development and operation. Until recently, Volocopter insisted in an extremely difficult financial environment. “Despite intensive efforts, it has never been possible to find a sustainable solution to maintain regular operation outside of an insolvency proceedings by Volocopter GmbH.”

In Germany only operations in the rescue system are considered

Volocopter actually wanted to fly people in Paris during the Olympic Games. But because permission to commercial passenger operation was missing, show flights remained near Versailles Castle. However, Volocopter has received permission to train pilots.

Regular flights in Germany have never really been an issue because the cities in this country are not as large and densely populated as Rome and Osaka. They also have self -sufficient local transport networks. Instead, Volocopter and the ADAC air rescue had started a collaboration, for example to test the use for rescue purposes.

Although the modern aircraft are not undisputed: An analysis of the Leibniz Center for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim showed that travel times hardly shortened, while the costs and compared to electric cars also increased the CO2 emissions. “Urban air mobility can be useful, especially in emergency inserts and to connect remote regions.”