Officially known as the Advanced Air Mobility and eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, the Transportation Department says the vehicles of the future have the potential to “create new jobs, connect communities, and strengthen American leadership in aviation.”
“Together, these pilot projects will create one of the largest true test environments for next-generation aircraft in the world,” the Department of Transportation said in a press release posted online. “In addition to offering the American people an exciting window into the future of aviation, data from the pilot projects will be used by the FAA to develop new regulations that enable this future technology to be deployed safely at scale.”
And while it remains to be seen whether eVTOL can truly deliver a “flying car” future, as Duffy promised in a promotional video posted to various social media accounts of the Department of Transportation on Monday, it will certainly be interesting to see how much money the federal government ultimately invests in eVTOL once the three-year program ends.
The video, as you can see below, opens with a clip from the animated TV show The Jetsons, which debuted in 1962 and lasted just one season before being rebooted in the 1980s. The Jetsons was an important cultural touchstone for 20th-century people whenever they discussed the future, though it has been relegated to retro-futuristic status for at least a few generations now.
These scenes for eVTOLs aren’t technically flying cars, since they fly vertically like helicopters and you can’t drive them on the road, but the term is often shorthand that people understand when trying to discuss things like air taxi service. Some people also use the term eVTOL when an aircraft is not fully electric. The terminology can be confusing to say the least.
According to a press release, the government program announced Monday includes eVTOL passenger operations at the Manhattan Heliport, operated through the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and cargo testing on the Gulf of Mexico, operated from Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. The agency also says there will be pilot programs in states like Utah and Texas, as well as tests of emergency medical response operations from the Florida Department of Transportation.
Companies participating in the pilot program include:
- umpire
- archer
- beta
- electra
- Elroy Air
- Joby
- reliable robotics
- wisk
Duffy did what every member of the Trump administration does in his announcement on Monday, thanking the president as if we live in an authoritarian state where the leader is responsible for everything.
“Thanks to President Trump, the future of aviation is here – and it’s going to dramatically improve the movement of people and products,” Duffy said. “Congratulations to the great American innovators behind each of these exciting pilot programs. Working together, we will ensure America leads the way to safely leverage next-generation aircraft to fundamentally redefine personal travel, regional transportation, cargo logistics, emergency medicine and much more.”
As an industry, flying cars have a long history of failure. The concept is over a century old, and during the last 20 years they have reportedly been only two years apart. Without government help, eVTOL companies may struggle. For example, Supernaval, an air taxi company backed by Hyundai, recently laid off hundreds of workers in California. Building a flying vehicle is one thing. Making a profitable business out of it is the hard part.
If you can believe it, President Trump first talked about eVTOL years ago. The president made a video about flying cars as early as 2023, long before he won the 2024 presidential election, in which he promised he would take them seriously as a way to make China the best technologically.
“Another big opportunity is in transportation. Dozens of major companies in the United States and China are racing to develop vertical take-off and landing vehicles for families and individuals,” Trump said in the 2023 video.
Trump said, “Just as the United States led the automotive revolution last century, I want to ensure that America, not China, leads the revolution in air mobility. These breakthroughs can transform commerce, bring a massive flow of wealth to rural America, and connect families across our country in new ways.”
Needless to say, Trump isn’t paying much attention to flying cars this week. He is fully prepared for the war started in Iran; About which he continues to give contradictory messages.
Will America get flying cars before World War III? If you know the answer then you can probably make good money from online betting. But if the answer is no, then getting the payments to go right could be a problem, given that the Internet is probably experiencing problems and the US currency no longer has any value.
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