This Electric Air Taxi Company Is Charging Up for Autonomous Flight

Air taxi company Joby Aviation is eyeing a more autonomous future.

The Santa Cruz, California-based company announced an acquisition of the autonomous leg of San Francisco-based startup Xwing in an all stock deal on Tuesday. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. The technology pushes Joby one step closer to its long-term vision of autonomous air taxis, and in the near term could aid with Joby’s existing and future Department of Defense contracts.

“The aircraft we are certifying will have a fully-qualified pilot on board, but we recognize that a future generation of autonomous aircraft will play an important part in unlocking our vision of making clean and affordable aerial mobility as accessible as possible,” Joby founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt said in a statement.

Joby’s key product is an electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft–or eVTOL–designed to ferry passengers in cities across the world at speeds of up to 200 mph. It can hold four passengers (or a load of cargo) and is operated by a pilot. It sports six large propellers capable of tilting, permitting it to take off like a helicopter, and then fly forwards.

Joby intends to launch its commercial passenger service with pilots on board, and, thanks to its Xwing acquisition, introduce autonomous technology into electric air taxis “over time, starting with additional tools to reduce pilot workload,” according to a Joby spokesperson.

Joby, which trades publicly on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol JOBY, has inked deals with major players in the ridesharing, aerospace, automotive and aviation industries including Uber, Delta Air Lines, Toyota and NASA. The company was the first to fly an air taxi in New York City, and has plans to launch service in Dubai by 2026, Fast Company reported. Other companies competing in the space include Archer Aviation, Beta Technologies, and Wisk, which is a part of Boeing.

Xwing, meanwhile, has completed 250 fully autonomous flights and more than 500 automatic landings in Cessna aircraft, using software developed in-house that includes vision system processing, detect and avoid algorithms, and machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms, among other technologies. The company also received official project designation from the Federal Aviation Administration and boasts a contract with the Air Force.

“For the past 7 years, our team has broken barriers to advance aviation autonomy. Now, as we join forces with the leading electric air-taxi developer, I can’t imagine a better home for the Xwing team to realize our shared vision,” Xwing co-founder, president and chief technical officer Maxime Gariel said in a statement.

Following the acquisition, Xwing staff, including engineers, researchers and technologists will join Joby to assist with autonomy in its aircraft and cultivate further opportunities for partnership with the DoD. In September of last year, a Joby aircraft arrived at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The company also plans to send two more to MacDill Air Force Base in Florida in 2025.