00:00The eVTOL industry is hitting a pivotal moment as companies race towards FAA certification
00:05and commercial launch, all this just as legal battles heat up over design and IP.
00:11Andrew Hawkins joins us now, Transportation Editor at The Verge.
00:15Really appreciate your time for this conversation, Andrew.
00:17How close would you say is the industry really to commercial operations?
00:24Yeah, I would say they've been claiming that they're close for a while now,
00:28but I do think that this year and stretching into the next couple of years are a pretty pivotal time
00:35for all of these companies because they've said that, especially Archer and Joby have said that
00:42towards the end of 2026 is when they plan on launching a commercial air taxi service.
00:49So that seems to suggest that these companies are making progress in getting certification
00:55to allow flights for these radical new aircraft.
01:00Well, you mentioned Archer.
01:02What would you say is really at the core of Archer Aviation's patent lawsuit
01:05against UK-based vertical aerospace?
01:08What is important to know in that lawsuit for people who have not followed the story all that closely?
01:14Yeah, I think there's a couple of interesting threads that you could pull on this lawsuit.
01:20I think the first is that the engineers at these companies are all sort of trying to solve
01:26the same problems around battery weight and lift and noise, and their aircraft designs are starting
01:33to look remarkably similar to each other.
01:35And that's why you see Archer accusing vertical of patent infringement of stealing its designs.
01:41And I think there's also sort of a question around the talent pool in this industry,
01:48that the aerospace engineers that are capable of designing these batteries and these aircraft,
01:54it's a pretty small pool of people.
01:56So I think you're seeing a lot of these companies sort of fighting over who gets to hire what talent.
02:01And that sort of came up last year in a case between Joby Aviation and Archer,
02:07where Joby accused Archer of stealing some of its trade secrets.
02:11And then I think a third thing is that IP is really kind of part of the strategic moat
02:18around these companies.
02:19So you have Archer, Joby, vertical, none of these companies have really earned any revenue
02:26at this point.
02:27They're all sort of pre-revenue at this point.
02:28They haven't launched their commercial service.
02:31And so I think their most valuable product that they have is their intellectual property.
02:35And that's why you're seeing so many of these companies fighting with each over
02:38over who has the rights to what designs and engineering talent.
02:45Andrew, talk to me a bit more about the similarities between the aircraft,
02:49Archer on the one hand, vertical on the other features like 150 mile per hour speeds,
02:55100 mile range, tilt rotors.
02:57What do these features really do?
03:00And how common would you say they are across the industry?
03:04Yeah, so the designs that both of these companies are using, you described it well.
03:08They're essentially, they look like kind of small prop engine, single prop engine aircraft.
03:14But instead of, you know, on their fixed wings, instead of fixed wings,
03:17they have these tilt rotors that sort of look like what you would see on a drone, for example.
03:22And so what Archer is claiming is that Vertical has copied its patents that it has filed for its midnight
03:30aircraft.
03:31And that Vertical's Velo aircraft, which it released late last year,
03:36essentially mimics the designs of Archer's midnight aircraft.
03:39And I think what you're seeing, though, is that, you know,
03:42it's because these are the designs that regulators, the FAA,
03:46or the European airspace regulators are preferring.
03:51This is, we're seeing sort of the industry move towards these designs
03:55in a way from some of the more radically different earlier designs,
03:58because this is what it's going to take for these companies to gain
04:01a flight certification from the regulators.
04:04And so at that point, as sort of things start to narrow down,
04:07as these designs start to narrow down,
04:09I think we're going to start to see a lot more conflict,
04:12whether it's these patent infringement lawsuits
04:14or other sorts of conflicts that might emerge between these companies.
04:19What is the most interesting part of the current story
04:23surrounding the air taxi market
04:25that you think more people should be paying attention to?
04:28Yeah, I think it's the prospects of electric flight, right?
04:31This is something that has, I think,
04:34been sort of one of the foremost challenges in aerospace.
04:38The idea that you can power an aircraft using batteries alone
04:44is sort of the holy grail, right?
04:47The idea of if you want to decarbonize the aviation industry,
04:51the idea of shifting over to batteries is obviously highly compelling.
04:55But at the same time,
04:56that you're running into all of these physics problems around weight
05:02and how much weight that you can sustain
05:05while also achieving a liftoff is extremely challenging.
05:09So I think that there's a high degree of reward involved
05:14with shifting over to electric aviation.
05:17But at the same time,
05:18you've seen companies and leaders in the industry,
05:23like Elon Musk, for example,
05:25has said that while he would love to design
05:28an electric jet for Tesla,
05:31it just doesn't really,
05:32the physics of it doesn't really make sense for his company.
05:35So there are just so many challenges
05:38that are still sort of lying in the pathway
05:41before we start to see a lot more
05:44of these electric planes take flight.
05:46Finally, Andrew,
05:47what will be some of the biggest catalysts in this story
05:50you'll be paying attention to in the months ahead?
05:53And I wonder what you think investors
05:54will be most closely watching as the story unfolds.
05:57Yeah, investors are obviously looking for signs
06:01that these companies not only have the talent
06:05that they need in order to sort of achieve
06:11the next steps that are required
06:13before they can get certification,
06:14but I think they're also looking to see
06:16that they have the right intellectual property,
06:18which is why this fight between Archer and Vertical
06:21is so interesting at this point.
06:23Value company,
06:24I think investors value companies,
06:25companies that have like the right flight control systems,
06:29the right battery management systems,
06:31and that can get there without sort of these high R&D costs
06:35that we're seeing kind of weigh down
06:37some of these initial companies.
06:38I mean, these companies like Vertical went public recently,
06:41Archer's been public for a while.
06:42And if you comb through their reports,
06:47their earnings reports,
06:48it's fairly clear that they're spending a lot of money
06:51on research and development,
06:52but not taking a lot of revenue in.
06:54And these companies are also all fighting
06:56over government contracts.
06:58They're fighting over land use
07:00and trying to set up these VertiPorts,
07:02these sort of like small airports
07:04where the aircraft will take off and land.
07:08So there's real estate fights,
07:10there's patent infringement fights.
07:12I think that this is really sort of a sign of things
07:14to come for this industry
07:16as it starts to consolidate
07:17and get a little bit smaller
07:18and things start to get a little bit more intense.
07:22Man, buckle up.
07:23No pun intended for, yeah,
07:26potential turbulence ahead.
07:28Andrew Hawkins, transportation editor at The Verge.
07:30Thanks for being here.
07:31Nice to have you.
07:32Thanks for having me.
07:33Awesome.
07:33Bye.
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