The future of transport

[paeng]

There's potential if there's an abundance of energy and material resources. But we're not seeing that per capita globally.

 

[Harpo]

Zoox (company) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Danny McG]

How they thought future transport would be in 1956

 

[Robert Zwilling]

Toyota's first electric air taxi has flown in Japan, Toyota signed a long term agreement in 2023 to supply key powertrain and actuation components for producing Joby’s aircraft. Joby is a California company that was created in 2009. The air taxi flown in Japan is designed to carry a pilot and four passengers at up to 200 mph speeds.

A 140-acre site at Dayton International Airport in Ohio will be the first serial production location for Joby, capable of delivering up to 500 aircraft per year, starting in 2025. Dayton, Ohio was the home town of the Wright brothers.

The range is approximately 100 miles. The dimensions are wingspan: 35 ft., length: 24 ft., no height listed, weight is 4,000 lb. Joby has flown air taxi test flights thousands of times, totaling 30,000 miles since 2017, including exhibition flights from the iconic Downtown Manhattan Heliport in New York City. It gets in speed by changing the alignment of the motors from a vertical position for landing, takeoff and flying to a horizontal position for high speed flying. It typically flies at 1,500 feet and can go as high as 10,000 feet. It can go 150 miles on a single charge, flying time 77 minutes.

Japan's other electric air taxi company, Skydrive, partnered with Suzuki, was supposed to fly an electric air taxi at the tenth annual lVibrant Gujarat Global Summit in January 2024 – Global Trade Show - in India, but they only flew a 1/5 scale model. They are running behind on their manufacturing schedule but still hope to fly one in 2024. Their vehicle costs $1 to $2 per mile to fly. It is a lighter vehicle than Joby's, probably the battery weight, at 37 feet by 37 feet by 10 feet tall, weighing 3100 pounds. It goes 9 miles in 5 to 10 minutes, top speed is 62 mph.

Another electric air taxi, EVE is still flying prototypes, The Eve eVTOL vehicle uses eight propellers for vertical flight and fixed wings to fly on cruise, with no change of component positions for flight, and has a range of 60 miles. It has lots of backers and investors plus bank loans and development loans to build a factory in Brazil. They expect to be certified in 2026 and have collected pre-orders for 2900 electric air taxis which would be based around the world.

German Lilium company calls its product The Lilium Jet, a 7 seater electric air taxi, has an expected cruise speed of 175 mph, with 155 mph range with cruise altitude of 10,000 ft. The company is behind schedule and has run out of funding. It is still planning on producing electric air taxi's with pre-orders of 780 units. It wanted to build a battery factory and assembly line in France with funds from the French government. The Lilium Jet uses ducted propellers that are enclosed in nacelles, which is why Lilium refers to the propulsion system as a "jet" which it claims gives it better efficiency over rotor designs.

A U.K. company, Vertical Aerospace, has completed the first phase of its piloted flight test program in September 2024, with its VX4 flying vehicle. The air taxi carries1 pilot and 4 passengers, with a cruise speed of 150 mph, a range of 100 miles, and carries 992 lbs. It is powered by 8 electric motors mounted on traditional airplane wings, with 4 propellers in front of the wings and 4 propellers behind the wings. Vertical Aerospace has pre-orders for 1,500 of its VX4 aircraft, worth an estimated $6 billion. Customers include: American Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Japan Airlines, GOL, and Bristow. It is hoping to have working air taxis ready for service in 2026.