// THE VERGE — MOBILE & WEB
Electric air taxis are stuck in the courtroom
Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
Legal wrangling between leading eVTOL companies Joby, Archer, and Vertical threatens the future of the industry.
Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
This is The Stepback, a weekly newsletter breaking down one essential story from the tech world. For more on aviation, air taxis, and Wi-Fi speeds at 30,000 feet, follow Andrew J. Hawkins. The Stepback arrives in our subscribers’ inboxes on Sunday at 8AM ET. Opt in for The Stepback here.
Last year, two of the leading air taxi companies in the US, Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation, sued each other, with Joby accusing Archer of corporate espionage and Archer claiming that Joby was concealing its ties to China. Then, in February of this year, Archer filed a patent infringement suit against a different air taxi rival, Vertical Aerospace, accusing it of copying its “Midnight” design for its own “Valo” aircraft.
These tiffs are taking place less than two years after Archer supposedly settled its dispute with Boeing-backed Wisk Aero over the alleged theft of trade secrets — only to see the case reopened when Wisk asked the court for help enforcing the terms of the settlement.
These heated courtroom battles are unfolding at a precarious time for the air taxi industry, right as it’s trying to position its technology as an important new mode of urban mobility with the ability to whisk passengers across cities without any of the noise or carbon pollution of a traditional helicopter.
Despite these promises, the industry is experiencing a lot of ups and downs. Air taxi stocks have lost most of their value over the last several years as certification deadlines get pushed further and further out. Budgets are dwindling as timelines are getting longer. And investors, already wary about the industry’s ability to win regulatory approval, are growing increasingly nervous about the enormous costs required by these lawsuits.