Plug-In Planes: Startup Debuts Pilotless Electric 'Air Taxis'

Wisk Aero, a startup founded in 2019 and backed by Boeing, has debuted its sixth generation remote-piloted “air taxi,” a yellow all-electric four-seat aircraft that can fly without a human pilot. The company touts its plug-in planes as the answer to city traffic congestion.

The Boeing-backed company is hoping to get approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to carry passengers as part of a commercial air taxi service, according to a report by the Verge.

Wisk’s goal is reportedly to create a flying taxi service, that can be hailed with an app, similar to Uber or Lyft. And once the air taxi is called, the plan is to not have a pilot onboard. Instead, the aircraft will fly on autopilot, with a human supervising remotely.

The company’s plan is to have the electric plane take off and land from vertiports — areas located on the rooftops of buildings where aircraft can land and take off vertically.

The company says it would like to have this air taxi service up and running within the next five years.

According to Wisk, its aircraft has a cruising speed of roughly 138 miles per hour, a range of 90 miles with reserves, and can fly at an altitude of 2,500 to 4,000 feet above ground.

In order to launch a commercial service approved by the FAA, aircraft companies need to obtain three types of certification: “type” certification, meaning the plane meets all of the FAA’s design and safety standards, “production” certification, which is the approval to begin manufacturing the aircraft, and “air” certification, meaning the company can officially conduct commercial air taxi services.

Similarly, an all-electric passenger aircraft recently completed its first 8-minute test flight. The nine-passenger prototype plane named Alice, built by startup Eviation, which claimed that the plane is “ushering in a new era of aviation.”

Electric vehicles are now expected to take to the skies, as Air Canada also announced last month that it has ordered 30 plug-in planes from the Swedish electric aircraft startup company, Heart Aerospace. The electric planes are expected to have an operational range of just 124 to 248 miles per charge.

You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.