2 Hours By Car, 14 minutes by eVTOL

It’s Friday!

Quick fact about Friday before jump into eVTOLs

The Concorde’s final flight was Friday, October 24, 2003. The plane traveled at twice the speed of sound and got up to 65,000 feet.

It’s final jaunt was from JFK to Heathrow before it was taken behind the barn.

Now that we’ve all learned something, let’s get into it!

What you need to know in eVTOLs this week

Archer Aviation

Archer Aviation’s eVTOL ‘Midnight’, achieved its first transition flight.

Meaning it went from vertical takeoff form of flight into a wing-borne flight similar to an airplane flying.

The aircraft got up to 100 mph when cruising around their Salinas CA flight test facility.

In November 2022, Archer’s smaller eVTOL completed its first airborne transition.

Manta Aircraft

It’s looking like the first eVTOL routes in Europe may be the equivalent of New Yorkers going to the Hamptons.

Private flight platform Skycab and Mantra Aircraft, an Italian maker of hybrid-electric Vertical and Short Take-off and Landing aircrafts, launched a partnership that will offer alternatives to helicopters, cars, trains, and ferries on domestic routes in Italy.

The proposed routes include flights from Rome’s Urbe Airport to Capri, which is a popular tourist hub in the south of Italy.

The companies estimated that the journey would take 50 minutes and cost $54 per passenger. By comparison, the trip would take three or four hours by rail, road, and ferry, and a chartered helicopter would cost $5,300.

Other potential itineraries include Milan Bresso Airport to Cortina, as well as Siena to Nice.

EHang

Saudi Arabia wants in on the eVTOL action and China based EHang is happy to oblige.

This week, EHang announced that its EH216-S eVTOL aircraft completed its first autonomous air taxi flight in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

EHang partnered with Front End Limited Company, a Saudi-owned enterprise to break into the Kingdom.

The organizations are touting the alignment between eVTOLs and ‘Saudi Vision 2030’ a government program that aims to increased economical, social and cultural diversification.

Between Saudi and the UAE, the middle east is an area to keep an eye on for eVTOLs.

Lilium

A ton of foreign companies have tried to crack China. Now Germany based Lilium is giving it a go.

They’ve signed a collaboration agreement with the Bao’an District that officially established its APAC regional headquarters in Shenzhen.

While the partnership initially focuses on the Guangdong–Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, with a population of over 85 million people, Lilium intends to grow across China and the broader Asia-Pacific region in the future.

Smart bet by Lilium as China is expected to account for approximately 25 percent of the global eVTOL market.

Pivotal

If you’re sick of reading about eVOTLs and want to fly one, here’s your chance.

The Pivotal Helix is a single-seat eVTOL with a range of 20+ miles and a cruise speed 63 mph that is now for sale. You can order now for an August delivery.

No license is required, but you do have to complete some training.

Be ready to drop $190K (or $240K if you need the trailer). Pivotal claims a trailer to sky time of less than 30 minutes so you have that going for you.

The highlight videos of Helix’s predecessor eVTOL is pretty cool:

The Markets

Or “The Casino” if you prefer the Wall Street Bets mentality…

Hope no one has short dated calls.

Hard to say anything has fundamentally changed in the last week with any of these eVTOL companies, so we can probably chalk this up to market volatility.

The better path forward is keeping a long time horizon.

The $100K Life Savings Bet

"I like this stock”  

 — Keith Gill AKA Roaring Kitty AKA DeepFuckingValue

Quick reminder - I put $100K, which is just about everything I have, into Joby so we are committed.

There are a lot of smart people - venture capitalists, billionaires, bankers, angel investors, CEOs, etc. that have shared deep insightful thoughts on investing.

But sometimes you have to take a big swing, simply because, as Roaring Kitty says, you like the stock.

And that’s what we’re doing here…

So are we in the money?!

Not quite.

Joby is trading around $5.00 per share and our breakeven is $5.22. So we are down a little over $4K at the moment.

Plenty of run way ahead and bumps in the road are to be expected.

No panic here. We’ll patiently hold.

Lighten Up

A 1928 failed attempt of a flying car coming from Detroit that didnt quite work out.

Final Question

Will you pay Uber Black Prices to take an eVTOL, or — best reply gets a shoutout next week.

Best Answer From Last Week

I asked “What year will eVTOL’s reach mass adoption? Where it’s not unusual to see one flying when you walk out of your house”

Best reply came from Marissa in California

“If you live near a military base or SF/NY then 2030. Everywhere else, its going to be a while.”

Thanks for reading and let us know what you want to see more of next week. We read every single reply.

Stay above.

— The Above Traffic Team

WIll be