Electric Aircraft

Shanghai's TCab Tech has become one of China's leading eVTOL contenders, claiming it's now made many test flights validating its 50-percent scale prototype air taxi design in vertical lift and hover mode, as well as transitions to winged cruise flight.

Norway has a lot of coastline and many fjords, but not much in the way of open ground on which to build runways. That's where the Elfly project comes in, as it's developing a short-haul electric seaplane that can take off and land in city harbours.

An interesting intersection between the future and past of human mobility this weekend, as Israeli company Air chose the Kentucky Derby to debut the full-size prototype of its Air One, a two-seat, buy 'n' fly personal eVTOL aircraft focused on fun.

With two successful flight tests in the bag, and just under US$2 million in seed funding, Florida company Undefined Technologies has unveiled the next generation of its "silent" commercial drone, which uses ionic propulsion instead of propellers.

Orlando startup JetX is planning a configurable eVTOL "flying car" chassis, and testing a quiet, modular propulsion system that vectors thrust from bladed or bladeless fans without tilting them, opening up some interesting design possibilities.

A revolutionary cryogenic tank design promises to radically boost the range of hydrogen-powered aircraft – to the point where clean, fuel cell airliners could fly up to four times farther than comparable planes running on today's dirty jet fuel.

Innovative vertical propulsion company Cyclotech has partnered with Yamato, one of Japan's largest delivery companies, to produce a concept for a very unique-looking mid-capacity delivery drone using Cyclotech's thrust-vectoring propulsion system.

Wisconsin's Ascend Dynamics has been flight-testing an 80-lb (36-kg) electric jetpack device with 12 coaxial rotors and an aluminum trellis frame. The company hopes to raise enough cash to build a powerful carbon fiber version for production.

Indiana's Pete Bitar has quite a few pots on the boil right now, including an eVTOL "flying supercar," directed energy weapons and electric jetpacks. Now he can add an electric paraglider to the list, after the first Canop-E's successful test flight.

Japanese eVTOL company SkyDrive has announced it's going into partnership with Suzuki, as it works toward the development and full-scale production of a "compact, two-seating electric-powered flying car," which it hopes to debut at the Osaka World Expo in 2025.

The emerging eVTOL industry is drawing in enormous investment money on the promise of clean, cheap, quiet electric air taxis – but it all started with a NASA engineer's research project back in 2009. Enjoy a look back at some of our early coverage.

Joby Aviation has announced an accident during flight testing of its market-leading eVTOL aircraft prototype. Flight tracking data appears to show the aircraft was being pushed over 270 mph, well beyond its advertised top speed of 200 mph.