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The automaker Stellantis continues to spend money on the way forward for city mobility, and never simply its personal vehicles and vans and different floor transport choices, but additionally within the electrical aviation sector, as evidenced by a latest $55 million funding in eVTOL firm Archer Aviation. Stellantis had already invested $110 million within the firm final 12 months, with an extra $39 million in inventory purchases in Archer earlier this 12 months, adopted by this latest $55 million in funding below the businesses’ strategic funding settlement.
We have been led to consider that we’d all be zooming round in flying vehicles by now, identical to the Jetsons, however alas, that promise continues to elude us. Evidently it’s a lot more durable to design and construct an airworthy flying machine than it appears 😀 and even more durable to construct ones that cross muster with the FAA. Who knew? Nonetheless, it appears as if Archer Aviation is getting nearer to creating that futuristic idea a actuality, probably reshaping city transport with its eVTOL electrical air taxis.
“Archer remains on track to complete construction of its high-volume manufacturing facility in Georgia later this year. This first phase of the build out is a ~350,000 square foot facility on an ~100 acre site designed to support production of up to 650 aircraft annually, which would make it one of the largest manufacturing facilities by volume in the aircraft industry. Archer’s goal with this facility remains to establish a factory that can support its planned commercial ramp up by leveraging the expertise of Stellantis as its contract manufacturer.” — Stellantis
This funding from Stellantis got here quickly after Archer’s Midnight eVTOL accomplished a profitable transition flight, making it the second of Archer’s eVTOLs to attain this milestone.
“Transition is well-known within the trade as a really tough milestone few corporations have reached. At ~6,500 lbs, Midnight is believed to be one of many largest eVTOL plane to finish transition, which is crucial to having the ability to carry commercially viable passenger payloads.
“A transition flight occurs when the aircraft takes off vertically like a helicopter, accelerates forward, transitions from thrust-borne to wing-borne flight like an airplane with tilt propellers forward before decelerating and landing vertically.” — Archer Aviation
