Air Taxis

eHang certainly won't be alone in the skies when China's eVTOL air taxi market opens up. Two new projects have just been announced: the Autoflight V1500M, and the Pantuo Pantala – which frankly should be expecting a letter from Lilium's lawyers.

After shutting down the Vahana program in 2019, Airbus has revealed the new four-seat electric VTOL aircraft it's taking to the air taxi market for 2025. And while it's very pretty, the new CityAirbus's spec sheet is surprisingly underwhelming.

Craft Aero's nine-seat hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft promises 1,000-mile, 345-mph roof-to-roof inter-city hops – and it does so using a diamond-shaped blown box wing configuration and flap-vectored thrust design different to anything we've seen.

Lilium's eVTOL is vastly different to anything else in the air taxi world, using 36 small ducted fans in place of larger rotors. One of the key advantages, says Lilium, is the reduced noise signature – and now we get to hear it for the first time.

Paragon VTOL Aerospace is working on a second-gen version of its nine-seat Soar air taxi design, and it's settled on hydrogen-burning engines that'll deliver monster range figures between 300-900 miles (480-1,450 km) depending on passenger numbers.

The UK's Samad Aerospace is making progress with half-scale prototypes of its E-Starling eVTOL aircraft, and has now started taking pre-orders for a smaller cargo drone using a similar design and semi-vectored thrust propulsion system.

With its planned SPAC merger just a week away, eVTOL air taxi company Archer has announced a new deal with the US Air Force, a vertiport partnership with Reef, and a preliminary win in its court battle with Wisk over allegedly stolen designs.

eHang has released video of what we believe to be the world's first full-scale eVTOL manufacturing plant, leveraging China's much looser domestic aviation regulations to get a significant jump start on American and European air taxi manufacturers.

Superyacht designer Steve Kozloff has turned his hand to next-gen aviation with a twin-prop VTOL aircraft that promises a monster 1,380-mile range, as well as the ability to take off and land conventionally where there's a runway.

An electric propulsion specialist and a supercar designer have partnered up on an eye-catching three-seat eVTOL claiming 250-mph top speeds and extraordinary 300-mile range figures, as well as some extreme flight dynamics and some nifty ideas.

Lilium has become the latest eVTOL manufacturer to announce a significant provisional aircraft sale – this time, a 220-unit, billion-dollar deal with Azul in Brazil, which values the electric seven-seat Lilium Jets at around US$4 million apiece.

This totally unique eVTOL design promises range, cargo and efficiency advantages unmatched by anything else on the market, using a dihedral folding wing design that gives it a tiny ground footprint in VTOL mode, and a huge wingspan in the air.