2024-10-08 16:14:00
Toyota has invested $500 million in a startup that intends to produce flying taxis and begin actual commercial flights as early as next year. The company Joby Aviation is based in California and was founded in 2020. Investors, including 500 million from Toyota, have put in a total of 894 million dollars so far. Joby Aviation will receive the money from Toyota in two installments. The first will arrive by the end of the year, and the others in 2025.
Joby Aviation revealed in August that it had completed four of the five steps required to obtain certification and announced that it hoped to launch its first commercial flight service in Dubai in late 2025. Before that happens, the team at the company has to do a lot of test flights.
The Joby air taxi is to be an electric commercial aircraft for four passengers with a pilot, capable of traveling up to 240 km on a single charge and reaching a maximum flight speed of 320 km/h. Its carrying capacity is about 500 kilograms. It is designed for vertical take-off and landing like a helicopter, while during horizontal cruise it flies like a fixed-wing aircraft thanks to its rotary propeller engines. The flying taxi is almost silent in flight, produces no harmful emissions and is claimed to be 100 times quieter than a helicopter during takeoff and landing.