Is this the year of the eVTOL?

Many companies have said for years that they would begin carrying passengers or cargo and ramping up mass production of aircraft by 2025. Today, however, meeting that goal seems like a lot to ask, given the challenging investor climate and the long process for gaining FAA certification of new aircraft.

In many ways the field of eVTOL companies has developed in a manner similar to that of the early car industry, which began with dozens of manufacturers competing for shares of a market that was not only nascent, but also uncertain. Indeed, a lot of people held onto their horses for years after cars were available. Today eVTOLS have to prove, among other things, that they advance urban mobility beyond helicopters.

Few of those initial automakers survived for long and the industry eventually boiled down to a few dominant players. Among eVTOLs an apparent “big three” including Beta Technologies, Joby Aviation, and Archer Aviation appear to lead the rest. Industry analyst Brian Foley said the eVTOL industry is ripe for a similar shakeout. “Big money began to flow into eVTOL development as investors saw a chance to turn quick profits, but they didn’t always perform the due diligence needed in the aviation industry,” Foley said. “Developing new aircraft can be a multibillion dollar effort and certification can be a very long process.” Instead of the year of electric-powered air taxis, Foley said, 2025 could be known eventually as the year when many eVTOL companies disappeared.

The eVTOL landscape can also shift dramatically. German manufacturer Lilium GmbH, which is developing a unique aircraft that uses electric ducted fans mounted on movable wing surfaces for vertical lift and forward propulsion, entered insolvency proceedings in October. As industry watchers began treating the company as a textbook cautionary tale, a “very experienced consortium of investors” came to its rescue, Lilium said, with funding to restart operations. The announcement came just before the December holidays.

As Lilium recovered, Volocopter, another German company that has been prominent among eVTOL developers since its founding in 2011, marked the end of 2024 with its own insolvency filing. The company said it still plans to pursue certification of its two-seat VoloCity aircraft, which it has flown in numerous public demonstrations. Indeed, its aircraft shared space with Joby’s tilt-rotor eVTOL on Manhattan’s East River waterfront during a joint flight demo last year.

Difficulties for Lilium and Volocopter reflect challenging market conditions that all eVTOL companies have to navigate. They also show that having a successful flying prototype is not enough to maintain an aviation startup’s operations. Building the proposed eVTOL fleet requires multiple rounds of financing, and with each round, the total funding available tends to decrease, Foley said. “When some of these companies go back to the investment market, they will find that the well has dried up.”

Joby and Archer, both publicly traded, have entered partnerships with automakers to help produce their aircraft, and with airlines that plan to fly them. Joby is working with auto giant Toyota and Delta Air Lines while Archer partnered with car company Stellantis and entered a collaboration agreement with Southwest Airlines.

While the backing is encouraging, cycles of uncertainty in the airline and auto industries could wind up slowing eVTOL progress if the partners encounter difficulties in their core operations. The same is true for eVTOL units of major aviation companies including Boeing’s Wisk subsidiary; Embraer’s Eve spinoff; and Textron Inc.’s eAviation business, which is flight-testing a prototype called Nexus.

Last February Joby announced it was the first eVTOL company to complete the first three of five phases in the FAA certification process, and by late December said it had completed 40 percent of the fourth phase. The company also said it plans to begin flight testing for type inspection authorization, or TIA, this year with its first FAA-conforming aircraft, which is under construction.

The company said TIA testing is considered the final phase of the type certification process and involves FAA test pilots conducting tests to validate the aircraft’s performance. “This milestone demonstrates Joby’s continued industry leadership and is a reflection of the maturity of our test program and the rigorous company testing we’ve already completed,” said JoeBen Bevirt, Joby’s CEO and founder.

The earliest regular passenger-carrying operations Joby has discussed recently involve air taxis in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, slated to begin full service in 2026. The company said, however, that it is “targeting initial operations” for later this year.

“We’re looking forward to delivering an incredible experience for residents and visitors to Dubai as early as 2025 and we’re excited to be laying the groundwork for the expansion of our service across the wider UAE,” Bevirt said when announcing the plan in early 2024.

Archer had long said it expected certification of its Midnight aircraft in 2024 and planned to begin passenger service in 2025, though the company, like its rivals, is still working toward FAA type certification. Like Joby, Archer has used New York City as an example of how its aircraft would streamline passenger travel between major airports and their final destinations.

Early plans for the Midnight include shuttling passengers from New York’s Downtown Manhattan/Wall Street Heliport to the Newark Liberty International Airport, a flight expected to take 10 minutes or less compared with ground transport that easily can take an hour or longer. United Airlines, which would operate the New York-to-Newark route, has placed an order for up to 200 of the Midnight air taxis in a deal worth $1 billion.

Archer has also tapped the UAE as an early market for its aircraft and plans to launch an air taxi service in Abu Dhabi during the fourth quarter of this year. Both Archer and Joby have added production facilities that they say are capable of turning out hundreds of aircraft annually.

Beta, based in South Burlington, Vermont, stands out somewhat from competitors because it is working to certify an electric airplane that takes off conventionally (an eCTOL) in addition to its eVTOL aircraft. The two models are based on the same airframe and look alike except for the absence of lifting rotors on the conventional model.

Like its immediate competition, Beta identifies certification as a tantalizing final hurdle before its aircraft enter service. The company has taken a different course, though, by focusing first on cargo operations with its electric airplane, with eVTOL and passenger service to follow.

“In 2025, we’re focused on production, operations, and certification. We’ll continue producing CTOL and VTOL aircraft and building out and refining pilot and maintainer training programs with an eye toward operations,” a spokesperson for the privately held company said. “We will begin to deliver technology to customers, including the Tech Demonstrator that Air New Zealand will be utilizing for familiarization this year. And, of course, certification remains a top priority in 2025.”

Aviation has long been hard on its pioneers. During the late 1920s and 1930s doubters slowed engineer Frank Whittle’s progress toward developing turbojet engines that later transformed how we fly. Cessna executives in the 1950s rejected the idea of adding a nosewheel to the company’s 170 taildragger to create the 172, an eventual bestseller. Numerous attempts to turn out flying cars, or roadable aircraft, from Moulton Taylor’s 1940s Aerocar to the Terrafugia Transition, which first flew in 2009, have fallen flat.

Predicting which potential game-changing technology will make the cut and how long that might take can be difficult. Getting passenger-carrying eVTOLS into commercial service, however, does not seem likely this year given the pace of certification for new categories of aircraft.

For success in the longer term, assuming eventual certification, eVTOLs will still have to demonstrate a level of utility beyond that of the helicopters they seek to replace. The aircraft will also have to gain acceptance from the flying public as well as urban dwellers who have a history of fighting against rotorcraft operations over their neighborhoods. Ultimately homeowner groups might have the final word regarding the success or failure of eVTOLs in New York and other cities.

Years from now, people might look up to see eVTOLs shuttling passengers from urban rooftop vertiports and wonder how critics ever doubted their potential. Or the aircraft could join the vast ranks of technological advances that missed the mark with consumers, from laser-disc players to Google Glass. Either way, people are likely to ask, “What were they thinking?”