[AutonomousVehicles] Joby Aviation Working on Autonomous Air Taxis

[Cornelius Butler]

HI Fellow Committee Members,

I want to mention another company that is in the autonomous vehicle
industry but in a different way and you may or may not have heard of them.
Joby Aviation is working on a new area of transporting people called
Electric Vehicle Vertical Take Off and Landing (EVTOL for short). This is a
fancy acronym to say air taxis. In fact, the company calls itself an
Electrical Arial Ride Sharing Company. Think of it as small aircraft that
have a pilot that can transport 1-3 people across a city or area. Joby has
created a custom air vehicle that can fly 150 miles at a time. They will
start flying these in cities in the U.S. in the next few years, possibly as
early as 2023. They have already gotten FAA approval for their aircraft.

The reason I'm bringing it to the committee and members of this list is
because Joby recently announced that they are working on a fully autonomous
version of this vehicle. You would schedule it like an Uber, get in, and it
would fly you to your destination without a pilot but they have
acknowledged that it will be some time before the FAA allows the autonomous
version but they are definitely working on it. Their goal is to make the
cost of a ride around the same cost that an Uber or Lyft costs.

I'm including a link to Joby's website and a youtube video from CNET about
them. I'm going to continue to pay attention to developments from this
company. I'm also going to send out a separate post about them completing
their 150 mile test successfully. I'm also including below the link to
Wikipedia which explains what EVTOL vehicles are so you can geek out on it
if you should choose :) There is quite a bit of work in the EVTOL industry,
Joby is the farthest along.

Joby Aviation Company Website:

https://www.jobyaviation.com/

Video about Joby:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRlmfFIiHbU

EVTOL Information from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EVTOL



-- 
Cornelius Butler
President
Butler New Media, LLC
"Creating A More Accessible World"
http://www.butlernewmedia.com
email: corn at butlernewmedia.com
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