Joby Aviation just got through Stage 3 of their FAA certification. EV air taxis are right around the corner. There are five stages. Joby is now fully focused on the fourth stage of the certification process, where the Company will complete tests and analysis for FAA credit covering every component and system on the Joby aircraft – as well as the entire aircraft itself. ... Joby’s electric air taxi is designed to carry a pilot and four passengers at speeds of up to 200 mph, offering high-speed mobility with a fraction of the noise produced by helicopters and zero operating emissions. https://www.aviationtoday.com/2024/02/22/joby-completes-third-stage-of-faa-certification-process/
Even NASA is getting in on the action https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-begins-air-taxi-flight-testing-with-joby/ NASA began flight testing Monday with Joby Aviation’s all-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft as part of the agency’s Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) National Campaign. This testing runs through Friday, Sept.10, at Joby’s Electric Flight Base located near Big Sur, California.
There are some EV plane prototypes out there but the vision is more to shuttle people from where they live to the closest airport with commercial service as their range is still too limited for most routes. We'll see.
The Alice electric commuter has a range of 290 miles with 30 minutes reserve, seats for 2 pilots and 9 pax. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eviation_Alice The route from PDX (Portland) to SFO (Seattle) is 211 miles. From wiki: The first buyer for the Alice was Cape Air, a regional airline serving the Northeastern United States as well as the Caribbean.[30] In August 2021, Deutsche Post announced that it had ordered 12 aircraft for use by DHL to transport cargo, with delivery planned from 2024.[31][32] In April 2022, Eviation stated that Cape Air ordered 75 planes.[33] In September 2022, GlobalX Airlines ordered 50 aircraft, with deliveries starting in 2027.[34] In January 2023, Mexican regional carrier Aerus ordered 30 aircraft. I suspect there is an aging fleet of small aircraft providing these services.
Within 20 years, these may be commonplace, with licensing similar to automobile licensing today - kind of like a pilot's license, but less stringent. As for weather, their are road warnings with inclement weather. There may be similar warnings for air taxiing.
I doubt it will ever be as commonplace or casual as cars. Air craft a fundamentally more difficult and less intuitive to pilot and don't operate in a controlled environment like roads. The other major issue is that if cars break down or have a low-speed collision, they can just roll to a stop but with aircraft, there is a good chance of them coming crashing down on to whatever is below.
In reality, I expect it to be about as commonplace as Heliports are today.. In fact, to give an idea how big these might ultimately be, look no farther than New York. Where the Downtown Manhattan Heliport is often seen in movies and TV shows taking passengers from Manhattan out to Newark, LaGuardia and JFK Airports. A way for people who live and work downtown to get to the airport via helicopter. Of course, that was the idea. It never really worked though. For about 20 years it did, but the scheduled flights ended way back in the 1980s, they were simply too expensive for most to even consider when they could take a taxi or public transit. A company did start up in 2006 and try it again. And it lasted exactly 3 years, and US Helicopter ceased all operations in 2009 and shut their doors. So for other than 3 years back before the last housing bubble burst, there have not been actual scheduled helicopter shuttle flights out of the most famous heliport in the world in something like 4 decades. So no, I bet these will not be commonplace, no more than they are commonplace today. And that is almost always one of the biggest failures I see in things like this. People trying to drive hype for a product where there is simply no demand for it. There is no demand for an electric helicopter, let alone for air taxis. They have been tried, multiple times in multiple places. And they have pretty much always failed. It is interesting that at one time I worked in the tallest building in downtown LA. And I worked on one of the very top floors, which was essentially a service floor as that was where they stuck us IT guys. But it was cool because we could take the old executive elevator to the roof for smoke breaks. And it is funny how many helicopter pads there are on the roofs of all those downtown office buildings. Want to know how often I ever saw them actually used? Once. Only once did I ever see one get used. And I'm not even sure if I can count that, as it was obviously some kind of TV or movie shoot, as we could see the crew and cameras, and the helicopter would hand and take off over and over for about an hour before they got whatever footage they needed and they wrapped. So no, these will not be commonplace in 20 years, no more than they were commonplace 20 years ago, or 40 years ago. Oh, the Manhattan Heliport still operates, taking tourists on flights mostly. Oh, and for the uber-rich that don't want to dirty their feet walking with the Plebs so they charter flights from the heliport to the airport. You know, people like Koby Bryant. Who had been chartering helicopters to take him to places since 2015. And to be honest, I just don't think there are enough celebrities to support this kind of business.
