Joby Aviation Nears Reality of Sky Taxis with Electric Aircraft Testing

In the 1980s, young JoeBen Bevirt dreamt of flying cars that could zip him from his mountain home to school in minutes. Today, as CEO of Joby Aviation, he’s on the verge of turning that childhood fantasy into reality. Bevirt and his team are developing a new class of electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles (eVTOLs), designed to revolutionize air travel and bring sky taxis to urban skies.

These eVTOL aircraft take off like helicopters but soar at speeds up to 200 mph with a range of 100 miles, all while being significantly quieter than traditional fuel-powered helicopters and small airplanes. The dream? To reduce travel times for everyday trips, turning what are now one- and two-hour journeys into just five minutes of air travel.

Bevirt’s company has already launched successful test flights in Marina, California, just 40 miles from his childhood home, bringing this vision closer to reality. Similarly, Silicon Valley’s Archer Aviation has been testing its own eVTOLs over Salinas, California, showcasing a prototype dubbed “Midnight” soaring above farm fields. These groundbreaking efforts are part of a larger race in the skies, with billions of dollars poured into companies like Joby and Archer, all competing to make electric air taxis a commonplace mode of transportation.

Joby has already secured a partnership with Delta Air Lines, and Archer has a deal to sell up to 200 eVTOLs to United Airlines, showing that the flying taxi concept is gaining serious traction. Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has created a new aircraft category called “powered lift” to regulate these futuristic vehicles, marking a historic shift in aviation regulations not seen since the introduction of civilian helicopters in the 1940s.