Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Oct 30, 2025

The race to build a flying electric taxi

For any commuter the prospect of being whisked to and from work in a fraction of the time it usually takes is pretty irresistible.

No traffic jams, no train delays and no cold platforms - what's not to love?

This is the promise of more than a hundred companies developing electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.

Like helicopters they don't need a runway, but unlike helicopters they promise to be quiet and cheap.

Yet the dream seems to be some way off. Industry experts say that taxi services using such aircraft won't be a mass-market phenomenon until the 2030s.

So what is the hold up?


Can they fly far enough?

There are good reasons why the eVTOL industry is focussing on short hops in and out of cities.

Firstly, there are plenty of potential customers in cities; secondly, eVTOL aircraft can't fly very far.

Most have batteries that can allow them to fly for around half an hour. In the case of Germany's Volocopter this amounts to a range of about 22 miles (35km) with a maximum speed of around 68mph (110km/h).

On Tuesday it made a test flight over Singapore's Marina Bay.

Other companies have boosted range by adding wings. So companies like Germany's Lilium have an aircraft which can take off vertically but can also tilt its wings and engines and fly more like a regular plane. Lilium expects its aircraft to have a range of 185 miles (300km).

Vertical Aerospace in the UK is also working on eVTOL with wings that it hopes will fly more than 100 miles.

But the industry would still dearly love to see a breakthrough in battery technology which would make all these prototypes much more useful aircraft.


Where will you take off or land?

If you are planning an air taxi service then you are going to need somewhere convenient for your aircraft to take off or land, and also charge or swap their batteries - what the industry likes to call vertiports.

That presents several challenges.

In big cities space is already limited. Heliports already exist but might not be ideally located or able to cope with extra traffic.

Some buildings might have suitable rooftops, but they are likely to be expensive to use.

Even if sites are identified, they would still need to comply with planning regulations, which don't even exist yet.

One of the big selling points of eVTOL aircraft is that they are relatively quiet. While hovering they should make just a quarter of the noise of a helicopter, according to Michael Cervenka, a senior executive at Vertical Aerospace.

And while flying forward "you wouldn't hear them at all", he says.

So that might ease the concerns of those living near a vertiport, but you could still imagine people objecting to a continuous stream of air traffic.

And just one accident might create widespread opposition to having landing zones in heavily populated areas.


How safe is safe?

Aviation regulators in Europe and the US are currently working out the standards they want these new aircraft to meet.

Once agreed an eVTOL aircraft is likely to go through years of testing before it meets them, a process likely to cost hundreds of millions of pounds.

"Most eVTOL manufacturers I have been talking to are trying to get certification by 2023," says Darrell Swanson, who runs his own consultancy specialising in the eVTOL industry.

In their favour, electric aircraft are much simpler than helicopters or passenger jets, so mechanically there is much less to go wrong.

"We don't need great big gear boxes and things like that," says Steve Wright, an avionics expert, at the University of the West of England.

Several aircraft designs have multiple motors, so they can fly even if one motor fails.

Uber, which has an eVTOL project called Uber Air, says that flying taxi services only need to be safer than driving a car, perhaps twice as safe.

But the public and regulators might expect safety standards closer to those of airlines.

Another question that has not really been answered is how eVTOL aircraft will perform in bad weather.

To save weight they will be very light, which could make flying in windy conditions bumpy or dangerous.

Yet a taxi service that has to shut down on a windy day would not be much use in many places in the world.


Who will monitor these aircraft?

Air traffic control systems already monitor the activities of helicopters over cities and experts says those systems could probably cope with hundreds more eVTOL aircraft.

Many big cities have rivers running through the middle which - with no residents below - make ideal flight paths.

But if eVTOL is going to become a mass market transport system, with thousands of aircraft, then new airspace management systems will have to be put in place.

That will definitely be the case if the industry meets its eventual goal - aircraft without pilots.

Those aircraft themselves will need be able to sense what is going on around them and identify other aircraft.

"It's not like all of a sudden we are going to get 5,000 vehicles flying over London on 1 January 2023," says Mr Swanson.

"There's going to be a slow build up of traffic over time and that will allow us to prove these systems work properly."


What will it cost?

The business model of a flying taxi service is yet to be worked out. But it is likely that they will serve short, well-defined routes in and out of cities.

Uber Air believes that such services will become "an affordable form of daily transportation for the masses, even less expensive than owning a car."

However, to begin with, such services will target richer customers who are prepared to pay a premium.

"It's the same old story, there will be early adopters with lots of money who will pay over the odds," says Mr Wright.

"The hop from the top of an expensive area in the City of London out to Heathrow or something like that would be incredibly valuable."

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×