Multimodal EV Charging: How Vertiports Serve Entire Communities

One of the most compelling aspects of vertiport infrastructure is something that has nothing to do with aircraft: community-wide electric vehicle charging.

This isn't a side benefit—it's increasingly central to how Landings is working with rural communities and solving the energy infrastructure challenge.

The Cooling Challenge That Changed Everything

As Landings has worked more closely with aircraft manufacturers on infrastructure requirements, an unexpected technical requirement emerged: battery cooling.

"The thing that comes up quite a bit is the cooling of the aircraft, the cooling of the batteries, which was not a consideration for your Tesla or your land vehicle, because those vehicles carry the coolant with them," explains Lisa Wright. "So the batteries are constantly being cooled."

Electric aircraft are different. "In order to make smooth operations, for the larger aircraft, you have to cool the batteries down before you charge them, which is a whole other piece of equipment and a whole other batch of time."

This creates an interesting design challenge. As Lisa notes, "You don't want to fly your aircraft with the extra weight of coolant, because you could have an extra load or extra passenger."

The result: vertiport charging infrastructure is more sophisticated than standard EV charging stations. And once you're building that level of capability, it makes sense to design it for multiple uses.

The NYSERDA Conversation

This thinking led to recent discussions with NYSERDA, New York State's energy research and development authority.

"My conversation with them was about having a multimodal EV charging center at my vertiports," Lisa explains. "Obviously, the heavy charging that we're talking about for vertiports would also be great for rural school buses and municipal fleets."

This directly relates to the Mohawk Valley site development. Rather than building charging infrastructure exclusively for aircraft, Landings is designing systems that serve the broader community's electrification needs.

What Rural Communities Actually Need

Rural communities are facing their own EV infrastructure challenges. School districts are transitioning to electric buses. Municipal fleets—ambulances, utility vehicles, maintenance trucks—are going electric. But the charging infrastructure to support these transitions often doesn't exist.

"There's school buses, there's ambulances, there's utility vehicles that are becoming electric," Lisa notes. "And a lot of people who live in these areas say, I'd love to have an EV, but I think it's going to be hard for me to charge."

Vertiport infrastructure solves these problems simultaneously. The heavy-duty charging required for electric aircraft can handle buses, commercial vehicles, and consumer EVs. The battery backup systems required for reliable aircraft operations provide grid resilience for the entire community.

The Technical Advantage

Landings is working with charging equipment manufacturers to create truly multimodal systems. "We're working with a couple of manufacturers of charging equipment, and the one that we are really excited about right now will be able to charge both municipal fleets, consumer vehicles and our aircraft."

This isn't about compromising on aircraft charging capabilities to accommodate ground vehicles. It's about recognizing that the infrastructure requirements overlap significantly, and that building for multiple use cases from the start creates more value for everyone involved.

The Community Value Proposition

When Landings enters a new market, community support is essential. Being able to say "we're bringing charging infrastructure that serves your entire electrification needs—not just our aircraft" changes the conversation entirely.

"We don't want to go anywhere where we are not wanted," Lisa emphasizes. "We really want to work with the community. We see this all as a value to the community in general. And we're bringing jobs, new careers, new companies who will be around."

Multimodal charging infrastructure demonstrates that commitment tangibly. The vertiport becomes community infrastructure, not just commercial aviation infrastructure.

Making Rural Electrification Economically Viable

One of the biggest challenges in rural electrification is economics. It's hard to justify building heavy-duty charging infrastructure when usage might be light initially. But when you're building it anyway for aircraft operations, adding the capability to serve ground vehicles becomes straightforward.

"We're offering, we're working with the community to make our charging stations, where possible, multimodal," Lisa explains. This approach makes rural electrification more economically viable by spreading infrastructure costs across multiple revenue streams and use cases.

The Future Is Integrated

As electric aviation infrastructure scales, the most successful projects won't be the ones that narrowly focus on aircraft operations. They'll be the ones that integrate into broader community electrification strategies.

School districts get charging for their electric bus fleets. Municipal governments get reliable charging for emergency vehicles. Residents get access to consumer EV charging. Local businesses get charging for their commercial vehicles. And aircraft get the heavy-duty charging infrastructure they require.

Everyone benefits from the same core infrastructure investment. That's what multimodal actually means—and it's how vertiport infrastructure becomes genuinely valuable to rural communities.

Learn more about bringing integrated charging infrastructure to your community at landings.co