eVTOLs/Urban Mobility

Airbus has closed the doors on its Voom urban air mobility (UAM) project, according to an announcement from Voom CEO Clément Monnet on Monday. The on-demand helicopter “air taxi” booking platform officially launched in 2016 and has been operating in São Paulo, Brazil, since 2017, Mexico City, Mexico, since 2018 and California’s San Francisco Bay […]

NASA signed agreements with 17 aviation companies to support its Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Grand Challenge technology demonstrations on Tuesday. Each company provided a proposal in one of three categories: developmental flight testing, developmental airspace simulation and vehicle provider information exchange. The new agreements will focus on developmental testing in advance of the first Grand […]

Urban air mobility company Wisk has signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of New Zealand to establish a passenger transport trial in Canterbury, New Zealand. The trials will use Wisk’s autonomous, all-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxi, Cora. Details regarding parameters and timeframes for the venture are still in development. “We […]

Joby Aviation announced that it has raised $590 million in its recent round of Series C funding and formed a partnership with the Toyota Motor Corporation aimed at the certification and deployment of all-electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOLs) for use in air taxi services. As part of the partnership, Toyota Executive Vice President […]

California-based OPENER has announced that Ben Diachun will be stepping into the role of Chief Executive Officer as the company moves toward bringing its BlackFly fixed-wing, all-electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) ultralight to market. The position of CEO was previously held by OPENER founder Marcus Leng, who will move to overseeing “next-generation manufacturing and […]

Hyundai and Uber announced a partnership aimed at developing air taxis for a “future aerial ride share network” at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Monday. As part of the announcement, the companies unveiled the Hyundai S-A1 Personal Air Vehicle (PAV) electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft concept. According to […]

A joint venture between Boeing and electric transportation solutions company Kitty Hawk Corporation aimed at developing Kitty Hawk’s autonomous, all-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxi, Cora, got a new name on Monday. Now called Wisk Aero, the Mountain View, California-based venture will be led by Gary Gysin, who previously held the position of […]

NASA formally unveiled its electric airplane test bed last week and the Maxwell (more formally the X-57) will be the agency’s first manned aircraft project in 20 years. The aircraft, which is based on a Tecnam 2006 light twin, is still at least a year from its first flight but the two largest of its […]

New industry association The Community Air Mobility Initiative (CAMI) announced its official launch this week. The nonprofit organization’s stated mission is to “support the responsible integration of urban air mobility (UAM) into communities through education, communication and advocacy.” In addition to its mission goals, CAMI says its priorities include outreach, public relations and model policy […]

Legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan has reportedly turned his outside-the-box vision toward eVTOL transportation and he’s already said to prepare for something different. “It’s pretty different from the 170 different outfits that are doing eVTOL now,” he is quoted as saying by Aviation Week. “And that’s all I can say about it.”  Rutan “retired” in […]