Joby Aviation
Joby Aviation is an American venture-backed aerospace company and developer of VTOL personal air vehicles designed for air taxi services. The company provides airframe design, fabrication, aerodynamic analysis and electric motor design.[2]
The X-57 Maxwell is powered by Joby electric motors[1] | |
Startup | |
Industry | Aerospace |
Headquarters | Santa Cruz, CA[2] , U.S. |
Key people | Founder/CEO: JoeBen Bevirt[2](Gorillapod creator) Executive Chairman: Paul Sciarra (Pinterest co-founder)[3] |
Products | Electric aircraft |
Number of employees | 170 (Oct 2018)[4] |
Website | www |
The startup was founded in 2009 and holds offices in Santa Cruz, CA and San Carlos, CA.[5][6]
History
Joby worked on the NASA LEAPTech and X-57 Maxwell projects. It switched from its S2 two-seat tilt-prop concept, to the four-seat S4 with four props on the wing and two tilting props on the tail.[7]
On February 1, 2018, Joby Aviation announced it has raised its capital by $100 million in venture funding to $130 million, including from Intel Capital, Toyota AI Ventures, JetBlue Technology Ventures, and Tesla/SpaceX backer Capricorn Investment Group. Joby intends to build a four passenger aircraft with a pilot, travelling 150 mi (240 km) on a single charge near-silently at a few thousand feet altitude, and 100 times quieter during takeoff and landing than a helicopter. It plans to mass-produce them to eventually operate a vehicle for hire service and using unmanned aircraft. [3]
On January 15, 2020, Joby Aviation announced additional venture funding of $590 million and a partnership with Toyota.[8] It plans to use the money to develop a large flying-car factory in Marina, California.[9]
See also
- Volocopter (also backed by Intel)
- Zunum Aero (also backed by JetBlue)
- Lilium Aviation
References
- Graham Warwick (Jul 19, 2017). "NASA Pushing Ahead With Electric X-plane". Aviation Week Network.
- "Joby Aviation LLC: company profile". Bloomberg.
- "Air-Taxi Startup Has a Working Prototype and a Fresh $100 Million". Bloomberg. 1 Feb 2018.
- "Joby Expands in Monterey County". Electric VTOL News. 5 Oct 2018.
- "Joby Aviation". Crunchbase. Retrieved 2019-01-02.
- "Joby Aviation". www.jobyaviation.com. Retrieved 2019-01-02.
- Graham Warwick (Aug 11, 2017). "Inside The eVTOL Explosion". Aviation Week & Space Technology.
- Hawkins, Andrew J. (2020-01-15). "Toyota makes a big bet on secretive flying taxi startup Joby Aviation". The Verge. Retrieved 2020-01-16.
- https://www.montereycountyweekly.com/news/local_news/joby-aviation-plans-to-build-a-massive-factory-for-flying/article_c4bf7c9e-380a-11ea-8873-ab86fbd1e784.html
External links
- Official website
- Kenneth I. Swartz and Mike Hirschberg (5 March 2020). "The First Electric VTOL Unicorn: Joby Aviation". Vertiflite.