After more than 1,500 flights and 53,000 km of tests, this eVTOL is almost ready to operate as an air taxi in 2025
After more than 1,500 flights and 53,000 km of tests, this eVTOL is almost ready to operate as an air taxi in 2025
We have been talking for many years about eVTOLs, electric vertical take-off, and landing aircraft that aim to become the future air taxis in cities. At the moment, we cannot talk about definitive products since their development continues, and the certifications to be able to take to the skies are not yet fully defined.
In the United States, we have already seen several companies have been testing their flying prototypes for years. One of them is Joby Aviation, a specialist in urban air mobility. After four years of testing with their prototypes, they have just confirmed that they have already completed pre-production testing and will soon move on to flight certification with production prototypes.
The intentions are clear- To produce eVTOL to carry out air taxi operations, which could begin in 2025. The road has been long and with a major factor: the millions of euros invested in initial financing, to which they were able to add a significant subsidy to the state of California and collaboration with NASA to work, above all, on the acoustic footprint of its aircraft.
After completing more than 1,500 combined flights and adding more than 33,000 flight miles (about 53,000 kilometers). More than 100 human pilots were operated on board, the first being not long in October 2023. They even performed a live demonstration in New York City, which also allowed them to announce plans to electrify one of its heliports.
The idea is that Joby’s eVTOLs can transport a pilot and four passengers up to 200 miles per hour, about 320 km/h, and can travel more than 240 kilometers on a single charge. The air taxi operations are expected to kick off in the United Arab Emirates: Joby signed an exclusive six-year agreement for such operations in Dubai just three months ago.
That is how optimistic the founder and CEO of Joby Aviation, Joe Ben Bevirt, was: «Our team has shown the world how real electric air taxis are. Its performance met or exceeded our predictions throughout the program, successfully achieving our goals of maximum range, speed, and a revolutionary acoustic footprint. “Learnings from the flight test program have been invaluable to our certification program and the broader development of regulatory frameworks around eVTOLs.”
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