Category: Alternative Transportation

The company has pre-orders from its backers for up to 1,000 planes.

By Lou Whiteman

Air taxi start-up Vertical Aerospace Group said late Thursday it intends to go public with nearly $400 million in new funding from a number of big-name partners who have also agreed to order up to 1,000 aircraft.

Vertical has a deal to merge with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Broadstone Acquisition (NYSE:BSN). The deal values the combination at about $2.2 billion and includes investments from American Airlines Group (NASDAQ:AAL), air-leasing company Avolon, and Virgin Atlantic airline, as well as an investment arm of Microsoft.

Vertical Aerospace’s main product is the VA-X4, a piloted, zero-emissions electric-vertical take off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle. The airplane/helicopter hybrid is expected to have a range of 100 miles and capacity to carry four passengers along with a pilot at speeds up to 200 miles per hour.

These so-called air taxi developers are becoming a hot commodity on Wall Street. China’s Ehang Holdings is already public. Another start-up, Joby Aviation, has a deal pending to merge with SPAC Reinvent Technology Partners. And Embraer is reportedly in talks to merge its eVTOL unit with Zanite Acquisition, also a SPAC.

Vertical has a competitive advantage in the form of its investors. American, Virgin Atlantic, and Avolon together have committed to buy up to 1,000 aircraft. American, which said it has a “pre-order” of 250 aircraft with an option to order an additional 100, in a statement said eVTOLs could be a key part of its push to go green.

Continue reading… “Air Taxi Start-Up Vertical Aerospace to Go Public With Funding From American Airlines, Others”

Space plane aims to take you anywhere on the globe in one hour

A company called Venus Aerospace Corp. is pursuing a hypersonic space plane that has the potential to take people from Los Angeles to Tokyo in about an hour. The trip in their proposed space plane would take off from the ground like a conventional aircraft and fly up to a high cruising altitude. Once at that cruising altitude, a rocket booster would ignite and push the aircraft to the edge of space at more than 9000 mph.

That’s approximately 12 times the speed of sound. The aircraft would travel at that incredible velocity for approximately 15 minutes before gliding against the atmosphere to slow down and eventually landing at a conventional airport just as it took off. Venus was founded by a pair of former Virgin Orbit LLC employees, and the company currently has 15 employees of its own.

Continue reading… “Space plane aims to take you anywhere on the globe in one hour”

Autonomous air vehicle company ehang unveils ‘baobab’, a large tree-like tower and landing platform for its EH216 passenger drones.

Designed by giancarlo zema design group (GZDG) with sustainability at the core, photovoltaic panels on the vertiports will generate energy and independent plug-and-play charging points will recharge the drones wirelessly. currently in the development stage, ehang and GZDG hope to enter the emerging global eco-tourism sector with hubs being planned for a lakeside site in china’s zhaoqing city as well as in the maldives, the united arab emirates, and italy.

Continue reading… “Ehang unveils tree-like vertiports for its autonomous passenger drones”

By Trevor Mogg

Imagine living in a coastal community and heading to the harbor for an ultra-low-altitude flight aboard an electric aircraft to a neighboring town just along the water.

Boston-based startup Regent is already working toward such a reality with its 10-passenger “seaglider” that it says could be carrying paying passengers as early as 2025.

Co-founders CEO Billy Thalheimer and CTO Michael Klinker, both of whom previously worked for a Boeing-linked company, told CNBC this week that the zero-emissions plane would begin a journey by leaving a harbor on a hydrofoil before lifting off the water to reach speeds of up to 180 mph — way faster than a lumbering ferry plying the same waters.

Continue reading… “This flying electric ferry could revolutionize coastal travel”

It’s the latest eVTOL company to go public via a reverse merger

By Andrew J. Hawkins

Germany’s Lilium will be the latest electric aviation startup to go public via a reverse merger with a special acquisition company, or SPAC. Lilium will merge with Qell Acquisition, a SPAC founded by former General Motors executive Barry Engle. The newly formed company will list on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “LILM.”

As part of the announcement, Lilium unveiled a new, seven-seat electric aircraft that it says will launch as part of an inter-city flying taxi service in 2025. Previously, the company’s prototype was said to have only five seats — so we can assume that Lilium’s ambitions to ferry more passengers are growing along with its financial expectations. 

It’s the latest deal involving an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) startup after the SPAC deals of Archer and Joby Aviation. A SPAC is a blank-check corporation, formed as an alternative to an IPO, because it raises funds for an operation that doesn’t have revenue of its own. There have been a rash of SPAC deals involving companies in the transportation space, including electric cars, autonomous vehicles, and micromobility. 

Continue reading… “Flying taxi startup Lilium goes public via SPAC, unveils its new electric aircraft”

David Mantey 

A California developer of flying taxis will become a publicly-traded company — and celebrated by unveiling its aircraft in action for the first time.
Joby Aviation founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt made the video announcement standing in front of the company’s aircraft — which proceeded to quietly start up its six rotors, lift a few feet off the ground, turn around and begin a slow ascent.

The company, one of the numerous would-be flying car startups around the world, operated quietly for nearly a decade before landing hundreds of millions in venture capital investment — including from Toyota, Intel, and JetBlue — in recent years. Late last year, the company acquired Uber’s flying car division, and soon, it will merge with a special purpose acquisition company in order to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

Continue reading… “Flying Car Developer Takes Off, Becomes Publicly Traded”

By Daniel Bennett

We talk to Ricky Sandhu, CEO of Urban Air Port, about the ambitious plan for an off-grid transport hub for drones and air-taxis.

Plans to build the world’s first off-grid transport hub for drones and air-taxis have just received government funding. The company Urban Air Port, which is building the hub in Coventry, will provide flying electric vehicles, carrying cargo and eventually people, with a place to charge and load up.

The project aims to lay the groundwork for a web of transport hubs that could provide a green, clean remedy to our cities’ groaning infrastructure.

We talk to Ricky Sandhu, the Founder & CEO of Urban Air Port, to find out if the idea could take off.

Continue reading… “Inside the world’s first airport for drones and flying cars”