Flying often first requires crawling, in a car, in slow or stopped traffic that eventually treats you to a view of airplanes soaring away from your ground-anchored vehicular misery. After decades of hype about flying cars, the past 10 years have seen a pivot to something of a car-plane hybrid: an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft that provides taxi-like service.
In concept—all we have to go by, since the only way to watch an eVTOL speeding somebody to LAX is in a computer-rendered video—this can look appealing. But after years of promising services that have yet to take off, eVTOL startups need to go beyond impressing investors. They need to prove to regulators that they can deliver safe, reliable service in already-crowded airspace. And then they need to earn the business of paying customers who have other transportation choices. Their basic bet that enough people will spend potentially large sums of money to save time is not crazy. But it’s hardly a sure thing, either.
To understand the gap between a private demo and public service, consider Joby Aviation, a Santa Cruz, California, firm that says it’s within months of launching commercial operations. At November’s Web Summit conference in Lisbon, Portugal, the company pitched its vision for the eVTOL future. “This is not just a rendering, this is not just an idea,” vouched Eric Allison, chief product officer.
