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A flying taxi took a spin over San Francisco Thursday — and the Bay Area’s tech crowd was there to watch. The small electric aircraft from Joby Aviation flew across San Francisco Bay near the Golden Gate Bridge during a demonstration flight that drew reporters and industry guests to the St. Francis Yacht Club. The flight is part of the company’s push to launch electric air taxis — small vertical takeoff planes designed to carry passengers on short trips of roughly 10 to 50 miles. Joby’s aircraft seats four passengers and uses six propellers. The company says rides could cost...

Lilium was slated to deliver its first two Jets to customers in 2026. Was.Lilium View 1 Images Seven years after its first test flight, German electric air taxi manufacturer Lilium has run out of funding and filed for insolvency for its two primary subsidiaries. That's from a regulatory filing with the US SEC, in which Lilium stated it had failed to raise an injection of US$54 million (€50 million) from the German government to continue its operations. The company had raised over $1 billion from numerous investors over the years. That's not just bad news for the eVTOL company, but...

Czech company UDX is flying scale prototypes of a tandem 2-up eVTOL it calls Airwolf. With individually-tilting ducted fan propulsion, it's got enough wing surface for efficient cruise flight as well as agile movement from a hover. Imagine waking early Sunday morning to ride the twisty coastal mountains of beautiful southern California. It's going to be a perfect day and you expect exactly zero traffic, because you're leaving the Hayabusa in the garage and taking your UDX Airwolf hoverbike. You don your lid, crank up your favorite tunes, spin up the ducted fans, lift off and hover out of your...

Santa Cruz aviation company launches air taxi ahead of schedule, teams up with NASA and the U.S. Air ForceSanta Cruz aviation company Joby on Monday became what is likely the first in the nation to deliver an air taxi designed for vertical takeoff and landing. Joby Aviation delivered the aircraft to the U.S. Air Force at Edward Air Force Base as part of a $131 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense. The delivery came six months ahead of its promised date, Joby said in a press release. santa cruz restaurant week 2023 A second electric vertical takeoff and...

It’s been a busy week for Japanese eVTOL developer SkyDrive, who has announced its second pre-order agreement in two days, its latest coming from CT UAV in Vietnam. That puts pre-orders for the company’s new SKYDRIVE eVTOL up to 200 in Vietnam alone. We will spare you the brief history of SkyDrive Inc. as we just offered a recap yesterday when the company announced a pre-order for up to five of its newly designed SKYDRIVE eVTOLs (seen above) by Austin Aviation in South Carolina. That initial letter of intent kicks off SkyDrive’s journey toward setting up shop in The Palmetto...

Coming out of stealth development is an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft by Applied eVTOL Concepts. The new eVTOL has thruster technology developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration via a multi-million dollar grant from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Applied eVTOL Concepts revealed the "Epiphany Transporter" last week, described as a "new mode of personal mobility." "The Epiphany Transporter can accommodate two people, their luggage, plus golf clubs! Intended to be simple and safe to operate, and about the size of a Tesla Model 'S' automobile, it fits into a standard one-car garage with its thrusters...