Joby Aviation Raises $590M for Air Taxi Development

On Wednesday, electric air taxi developer Joby Aviation announced a $590 million Series C. Toyota led the megadeal, plunking down $394 million, joined by Intel Capital, JetBlue's VC arm, and Toyota AI Ventures (yes, two Toyota entities invested).

Joby's round is the largest-ever investment into an air taxi company.

What gives?

Flying cars have forever been more punchline than serious mobility concept. But investors and manufacturers are doing their best to take electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft from sci-fi to reality by mid-decade. A Federal Aviation Administration official recently said six urban air mobility vehicles are "well along" in the certification process.

And some more good signs:

• Hyundai revealed its S-A1 air taxi last week and last year pledged to invest $1.5 billion in urban air mobility by 2025.
• Bell displayed a full-scale prototype of its 4EX air taxi concept at CES.

There's an app for that

The one for hailing a ride, ordering food, or renting scooters and bikes. Spearheaded by its Elevate division, Uber wants to be the OS for a network of shared air taxis. Elevate's vehicle partners include Joby, Hyundai, Boeing, Jaunt, EmbraerX, Pipistrel, and Karem Aircraft.

Uber has profitability challenges and Elevate has skeptics. But there's hope for the aerial ridesharing project, which is targeting test flights this year and commercial launches in Dallas, LA, and Melbourne, Australia, in 2023.

Let's put everything in perspective

The eVTOL market could be worth $524 million by 2025 and $1.9 billion by 2035, BIS Research estimates. The Vertical Flight Society says $2+ billion has been invested in eVTOL development (and that was before the Joby news).

But eVTOL investment still pales in comparison to electric and autonomous vehicle spend. The global auto industry will sink $225 billion into EVs between 2019 and 2023 and reach $85 billion in cumulative AV investments by 2025, per AlixPartners.

Bottom line: "Mark my word: A combination airplane and motorcar is coming," Henry Ford tweeted in 1940. Probably correct, but it clearly needs more time and investment than Henry anticipated.

+ What do you think: Will flying cars be available to the general public this decade? Vote here.