THE JETSONSElectric air taxis are finally ready for takeoff
A cab ride from Midtown Manhattan to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport today costs about $100, takes up to two hours, and includes up-close views of the soot-covered trash on the Van Wyck Expressway.
Paul Sciarra, executive chairman of Joby Aviation, thinks it’s time for an upgrade: A traveler will soon be able to make the same journey in less than 10 minutes, he says, while enjoying views from more than a thousand feet up in the sky. It will cost about the same, too, according to Fortune’s Alexei Oreskovic.
Sciarra’s vehicles are called eVTOLs (short for “electric vertical takeoff and landing”). Six electric rotors lift Joby’s aircraft vertically, then tilt sideways and propel it forward, generating a fraction of the noise of a helicopter. It can carry four passengers and a pilot up to 100 miles at altitudes as low as 1,000 feet, roughly the height of the Chrysler Building.
Starting this summer, a series of pilot projects across the U.S. will let Joby and several other companies with all-electric aircraft start carrying cargo, then passengers, in real-world tests.
