The average driver in the Greek city of Thessaloniki spends around 80 hours per year waiting in traffic. In Athens, it’s even higher, at 111 hours. With the number of tourists visiting Greece rising each year, the problem is only set to get worse.
To tackle the challenge, pioneering Greek start-up IGeTECH has developed Hummingbird, an all-electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle designed to revolutionize the way people travel over short distances. Compact and efficient, Hummingbird is a fully autonomous single-seater air taxi that can be flown without the need for a pilot’s license, since it only operates on pre-defined routes.
“We were inspired by the challenges of urban congestion,” said Irakleia Palaska, IGeTECH’s managing director and co-founder. “In big cities like Thessaloniki, traffic jams are part of daily life. If someone is in a hurry to go from the airport to the port for a meeting, it can take an hour by taxi. With Hummingbird, it would take just six minutes.”
Every part of Hummingbird – from its battery system and charger, to its aerodynamic body – was designed by IGeTECH’s engineers from scratch. This approach ensured the team had total control over how their eVTOL would perform.
“The battery was especially important because it needed to occupy minimal space to allow room for the passenger and luggage,” Palaska said. “Every detail was considered – because if you want to revolutionize travel, you must design around people.”
To bring their design vision to reality, IGeTECH deployed Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud, including CATIA for design and ENOVIA for project and product data management.