An aircraft developer has just passed a milestone in its mission to change the way we travel. According to Electrek, Joby Aviation’s electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) craft flew over 500 miles last month powered by hydrogen fuel cells and electric technology — and it still had power to spare.
Joby aims to assemble a fleet of air taxis that could be used to get from one part of a city to another or to travel regionally. The benefits range from obvious and immediate to more gradual and big-picture.
A benefit that everyone can get on board with is that these air taxis will save time. Traveling from New York City’s JFK airport to Manhattan by car can take an hour, but only seven minutes in an air taxi.
Joby had previously tested an all-electric version of the craft in New York in 2023. That craft could only travel 100 miles on a single charge. Adding hydrogen fuel cell technology to the equation adds a lot of distance and changes the air taxis’ capabilities.
“With our battery-electric air taxi set to fundamentally change the way we move around cities, we’re excited to now be building a technology stack that could redefine regional travel using hydrogen-electric aircraft,” Joby founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt said. “Imagine being able to fly from San Francisco to San Diego, Boston to Baltimore, or Nashville to New Orleans without the need to go to an airport and with no emissions except water.”
Besides saving time by not sitting in traffic or going through an airport, the big-picture benefits the hydrogen-electric crafts provide is the fact that they don’t produce the same harmful pollutants that planes and many cars do, contributing to the warming of the planet along with health issues in humans. When hydrogen is burned for fuel, it only produces water vapor.
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That said, creating and storing hydrogen fuel is not as simple as scooping up some water. It requires significant technology and energy, oftentimes requiring dirty fuel or diverting renewable energy that could otherwise feed the grid, so there are many environmentally-minded critics and skeptics.
It may take some years before hydrogen can gain wider acceptance as a truly cleaner fuel, but few would say the science is not worth exploring, especially because hydrogen-powered vehicles would not directly release pollution, which could lead to better breathable air in urban areas that use them.
Joby’s hydrogen-electric air taxis are just another example of the innovations being made in air travel centered around hydrogen power. Early this year, aerospace experts in the UK designed a jet powered by hydrogen that can travel halfway around the world without refueling.
Even more recently, a startup unveiled plans for a VTOL craft that will run solely on hydrogen that could take the place of private jets and smaller commercial crafts.
The goal for Joby is for its air taxis to be used much like Uber is today. Each craft fits one pilot and four passengers. Joby has so far completed three of the five stages necessary for certification by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Joby is looking to begin commercial operations in the U.S. in 2025 and is currently scouting locations for future operations in England.
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