From The Hustle
Peter Thiel famously quipped: “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.”
The early Facebook investor and Palantir co-founder was bemoaning how the tech industry was busy churning out consumer apps instead of the true innovations we were promised from yesteryears.
As reported by The Economist, as many as 300 companies are working on “short-range battery-powered craft that take off and land vertically.”
Translation: flying cars.
Morgan Stanley forecasts the industry could be worth $674B by 2040.
More recently, a number of flying taxi startups, dubbed eVTOL (electric vertical take off and landing), have reached public markets via special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs):
… for cost, regulation, and hardware to be solved before we’ll see eVTOLs buzzing around.
Here’s how the startups are differentiating themselves from:
Cabs: They can travel 4-5x faster than car transportation (read: no traffic)
Helicopters: The electric motors are quieter than choppers, and they only need a small patch of grass to land on
The Economist writes that the Federal Aviation Administration is working with a number of the companies to get them certified to fly, while Archer has already secured a $1B deal with United Airlines to ferry passengers.
Take that, Peter Thiel.
