In the last few years, the electric VTOL world has been inundated with an avalanche of cash, talent and ideas – it's been a long time since there was this much fresh energy in aviation. Companies like Joby, Lilium, Archer, Vertical Aerospace, eHang and others have gone public at sky-high valuations, promising to revolutionise urban and inter-city transport with clean, quiet, affordable electric air taxis.
Indeed, the whole thing is starting to look very sensible and corporate, and it's easy to forget that this movement is only just entering its teenage years. Not that long ago, the pinnacle of eVTOL achievement was a brave German physicist sitting on a yoga ball in the air.
So as long as we're sitting here beaming with pride celebrating New Atlas's 20th year covering significant moments in all manner of human achievements, we thought it'd be a great chance to look back at our early impressions of the eVTOL movement, and a few milestone events that we've seen in the 13 years since the idea first came to the public consciousness in a NASA engineer's 2009 research project, sparking the revolutionary fire that burns today.
Check out the original render video of Mark Moore's Puffin personal air vehicle below.
As well as the early ideas and designs, it's also pretty amazing to glance back at our first look at a few companies that are now working on colossal mass-production plans with billion dollar-plus war chests. Some of the promised timelines will draw a smile, too!
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![The Puffin in full flight ... electric motors deliver a top speed of around 150mph and a range of 50 miles - plenty for that daily journey to work and back! (Image: NASA)]()
April 14, 2010 | Jeff SaltonNASA's Puffin concept may look weird but who wouldn't want to be the first one on the block to be seen getting to work in one of these? -
![The innovators behind the SoloTrek/Springtail Exoskeleton Flying Vehicle have announced plans to develop the world's first fuel-electric hybrid flying car]()
June 30, 2011 | Paul RiddenThe innovators behind the SoloTrek/Springtail Exoskeleton Flying Vehicle have announced plans to develop the world's first, fuel-electric hybrid flying car. -
![An envisioned Personal Aerial Vehicle illustrates what our city skies could soon look like (Image by Gareth Padfield, Flight Stability and Control)]()
June 30, 2011 | Bridget BorgobellomyCopter is an EU project that looks at taking vehicles off the road and launching them into the sky. -
![Pascal Chretien's prototype electric helicopter takes flight]()
September 05, 2011 | Loz BlainA one-man team has beaten aviation giant Sikorsky into the history books with the world's first manned electric helicopter flight. -
![The e-volo accomplished the world's first manned flight of an electric multicopter in 2011]()
November 01, 2011 | Ben CoxworthGerman aircraft company e-volo has accomplished what it claims is the world's first manned flight of an electric multicopter. -
![The 18-rotor electric Volocopter has taken to the air for the first time]()
November 21, 2013E-volo recently celebrated the maiden launch of the newest prototype of its electric two-passenger Volocopter, sporting eighteen rotors. The company champions its difference from traditional helicopters, pointing to its ease of flying, green energy source, and redundant safety and computer systems. -
![The GL-10 prototype takes off in hover mode like a helicopter (Photo: NASA Langley/David C. Bowman)]()
May 04, 2015 | David SzondyNASA has dusted off and improved on a tilt wing aircraft design. Called the Greased Lightning GL-10, the unmanned prototype made a successful vertical takeoff and transition to horizontal flight at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, not far from NASA Langley. -
![Joby conceives the S2 VTOL tilt-rotor aircraft as a kind of commuter aircraft]()
December 02, 2015 | Loz BlainThe awesome Joby S2 operates like a 2-seater manned multicopter drone, that takes off and lands vertically but converts to a fixed wing by folding away its tilting rotors for long-range, high speed commuting. -
![Taking off and landing like a helicopter, the Lilium aircraft goes from VTOL to forward flight by swiveling its engines]()
May 08, 2016 | Colin JeffreyA two-seat, all-electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) jet aircraft is currently being developed by an ESA incubator enterprise in Germany. Claimed to be capable of 400 km/h (250 mph), the Lilium Jet is aimed at providing personal VTOL air-travel for the masses -
![If things continue to run as planned for e-volo, it plans to start building large quantities of the Volocopter and enter the market within the next two years]()
April 08, 2016 | Nick LavarsThe pursuit of personal flight took a promising, and kind of wacky, step forward today with the electric 18-rotor Volocopter lifting somebody into the air for the very first time. -
![The human-totin' Ehang 184 AAV at CES]()
January 06, 2016 | Ben CoxworthAs might be expected, there are a lot of drones on display this week at CES. Almost all of them have one thing in common, however: people can't ride in them. We say "almost all," as there is one exception. Ehang's 184 AAV (Autonomous Aerial Vehicle) is designed to carry a single human passenger. -
![The coming wave of urban air mobility could see air taxis land on vertiports built into the top of urban parking garages]()
November 02, 2016 | Loz BlainFresh from disrupting the taxi industry and charging ahead with autonomous cars, Uber is looking to add 170-mph electric VTOL air taxis to its on-demand transport mix. Here are the key points from Uber's fantastic 97-page Elevate white paper. -
![Crafted from a carbon fiber and epoxy composite with an aluminum alloy frame, the Ehang 184's top speed is listed as 130 km/h (80 mph)]()
February 06, 2018 | Nick LavarsEhang has been a little coy about its taxi drone since bringing a grounded prototype to CES in 2016. Today we've gotten our best look yet at the Ehang 184, with footage for the first time showing it carrying out test flights with people onboard.
We hope you enjoyed this brief retrospective. If our work here at New Atlas is valuable to you, the best way you can support our coverage is with a subscription to ad-free New Atlas Plus. It costs just $19 for a year, and your contribution would make our day!
