On his way home from school among the many redwood trees within the distant Santa Cruz Mountains, JoeBen Bevirt, founding father of Joby Aviation, longed to construct a flying automobile.
“This has been my dream since I was a child,” said Bevirt. “I wanted a better way for people to get from A to B.”
Fifteen years ago, Bevirt founded Joby Aviation, a Santa Cruz-based company developing an electrical aircraft that takes off and lands vertically like a helicopter but flies as efficiently as an airplane. The company is constructing a fleet for air taxi services within the Bay Area – and beyond – that will be nearly twice as fast as a helicopter but 100 times quieter. The 5-seat aircraft could take to the skies as early as next 12 months, company officials said.
In the Seventies, it was the space series “The Jetsons,” by which families zoomed through the skies in flying cars. But nowadays there may be loads of competition.
One day, perhaps within the not-too-distant future, commuters within the Bay Area will give you the chance to hail an electrical plane similar to they do with Uber. Single-seat electric planes for brief trips and joyrides exist already. From Joby to LIFT to Wisk to Archer Air, the technology is poised to permit people to get off the road and into the air not only for long trips but in addition for quick jaunts to the office.
Joby's plane can fly as much as 100 miles on a single charge and reach speeds of as much as 200 miles per hour. The plane uses six propellers and 4 batteries and produces zero operating emissions, company officials said. Joby — which is currently going through the Federal Aviation Administration certification process, a key step before Bay Area residents can board — has flown greater than 33,000 miles previously seven years with its full-scale prototype electric vertical takeoff aircraft, called eVTOL.
Archer Aviation, which recently opened in San Jose, announced Friday that it has partnered with Southwest Airlines for air taxi services. Archer already has Midnight, a flying taxi, a four-passenger piloted aircraft designed for rapid back-to-back flights with minimal loading time between flights, the corporate said. Under the cope with Southwest, Archer aircraft may have access to 14 California airports served by the airline.
Archer and Kilroy Realty Corp. also plan to construct a vertiport within the water next to the event company's offices in Oyster Point in south San Francisco. The vertiport can even be a “sea portal” that may offer electric-powered ferry service across the bay, Archer said.
LIFT Aircraft of Austin, Texas, already rents out its HEXA electric plane, which looks more like a big drone than an airplane. The single-seat aircraft, which is 90 feet tall and travels at about 45 mph, covers 10 miles in about 10 minutes, said CEO and founder Matt Chasen.
The company plans to bring the plane to the Bay Area so people can take it on joyrides or short trips for about $250. The plane is taken into account an “ultralight” and doesn’t require a permit from the FAA to fly, but it surely just isn’t allowed to fly over congested areas comparable to busy highways.
The experience, which incorporates ground training and flying the aircraft in a virtual reality flight simulator in addition to flights, lasts about 2 hours. After the training, participants pilot HEXA themselves under the handheld remote control of flight instructors.
“We're not just providing entertainment, we're also providing the opportunity to enter a new era of mobility,” Chasen said. “We're pushing the boundaries of what's possible in aviation.”
Airbus, Boeing and Embraer are also working on electric aircraft, and Mountain View-based Wisk Aero became a completely owned subsidiary of Boeing last 12 months in a deal value a whole lot of tens of millions of dollars.
Wisk is targeting the primary flight of its sixth generation eVTOL by the top of the 12 months and can be aiming to certify an autonomous aircraft by the top of the last decade.
However, the booming electric air taxi industry is giving some transport experts cause for concern.
Adam Cohen, a senior transportation researcher at UC Berkeley and San Jose State University's Mineta Transportation Institute, said Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) – an umbrella term for a group of recent and emerging technologies for brand new aircraft types – could face obstacles.
“There is a political question of whether travelers should take air taxis to destinations that are already well served by public transit,” Cohen said. “And I think the question here is, if we invest in AAM, are we doing so at the expense of other public investments?”
Eric Allison, chief product officer at Joby, said the air taxi service the corporate plans to supply just isn’t like traditional air travel. The company has developed an app that matches passengers with available planes and landing slots.
In addition to its domestic operations, the corporate plans to work with the U.S. Department of Defense and internationally in cities comparable to Dubai, said Bonny Simi, Joby's director of operations.
“We expect travelers to book on demand and board the plane just minutes later, similar to how ridesharing on the ground works today. That required us to completely rethink the software and operations of these aircraft,” Allison said.
The cost of the ride can be barely higher than taking the dearer Uber Black and may very well be just just a few dollars per mile, company officials said.
Still, “there are concerns about the affordability of these services and whether they will be available to the general public,” Cohen said.
Cohen said communities and neighborhoods – from Joby to its competitors – would want to return to an agreement on the position and operation of Veritports, as there are likely concerns about noise, privacy, visual pollution, energy use and emissions, and land-use compatibility.
“It's about the potential impact on the community,” Cohen said. “I think we're probably going to see flights in and out of existing airports. I think you have to prove the feasibility and market demand before you can consider building a new infrastructure network.”
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