Joby Aviation’s prototype electric aircraft looks less like a fantastical flying car from vintage science fiction than it does a buzzing insect large enough to carry a few human passengers. One morning in May, the empty five-seat airplane rose from a dirt field straight up to about 1,000 feet, its tinted windshield reflecting the midday sun. Then, as one Bloomberg News reporter watched from a chase helicopter and another from the ground, the aircraft’s six propellers tilted forward, and it zoomed ahead at a brisk 90 miles per hour, emitting a mechanical purr about as loud as a rooftop air conditioner. The vehicle, controlled by pilots on the ground, circled over a California military base while a bald eagle followed, regarding it skeptically.
Joby, an 12-year-old startup headquartered in Santa Cruz, is one of dozens of companies racing to realize the promise of an eVTOL—an electric airplane that takes off and lands vertically. The company’s rivals include aerospace giants such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Airbus, as well as startups like the Vermont-based Beta Technologies, which recently won backing from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund and Fidelity, and Germany’s Volocopter, which has been testing its two-seat aircraft for the last three years in Singapore.
Joby’s prototype vehicle is controlled by pilots on the ground.
SOURCE: JOBY AVIATION
The cottage industry is aiming to change how people get around every day, promising to transform cities and reduce carbon emissions in the process. In the U.S., Federal Aviation Administration head Steve Dickson recently told a House appropriations subcommittee hearing that he expects such advanced urban aircraft to be approved by 2023, with the first flights taking place the following year. Many analysts expect a massive industry will develop, though they say investors might have to wait patiently for more than a decade to see it flourish. In May, Morgan Stanley predicted the eVTOL market will hit $1 trillion in 2040.