TechCrunch Mobility: The shifting flight path of electric air taxis

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Something was in the air this week because we had a heck of a lot of electric aircraft news. Ba-dum-tss.

But really, it’s no joke — two of the bigger deals of the week involved companies developing electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (eVTOL). Together they illustrate how the burgeoning sector continues to consolidate and seek out near-term revenue streams even as they go through the lengthy regulatory process to eventually deploy electric air taxis.

In one of the crazier twists in the nascent eVTOL industry, Archer Aviation announced that it now owns its former rival Wisk Aero. Under the terms of the deal, Boeing agreed to sell Wisk Aero and two other subsidiaries to Archer in exchange for an ownership stake in the company. Boeing now holds a 16.5% stake in Archer. The other subsidiaries are SkyGrid, a digital airspace and air traffic management software company, and drone maker Insitu. 

For those unfamiliar, Wisk sued Archer in 2021 over allegations of the “brazen theft” of confidential information and intellectual property. The case went on for two years before the companies reached an unusual settlement that not only ended the lawsuit and Archer’s countersuit against Wisk seeking $1 billion in damages, but also led to a new collaboration. 

Wisk has taken a rather winding path. It started as Kitty Hawk, an electric aviation startup led by Sebastian Thrun, who co-founded the Alphabet moonshot factory X, and backed by Google co-founder Larry Page. Kitty Hawk shut down in September 2022, but its Cora program, which had spun off into a joint venture with Boeing, lived on. That joint venture was renamed Wisk Aero.

Then there’s Joby Aviation, which made a more predictable deal this week. The company acquired Resonant Sciences for $500 million, marking the electric air taxi developer’s push into the defense sector.

Resonant Sciences, which makes radio frequency and sensor systems, will become a dedicated defense business under Joby aptly called Joby Defense. 

Joby has been slowly expanding into the defense sector over the past couple years even as it has pursued its original mission to certify and manufacture electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft for use as urban air taxis. Joby says it is sticking with its mission, but also sees opportunity — not to mention revenue — in the defense sector.

A little bird

For the past two years, Uber has been laser-focused on locking up partnerships with, and even investing in, autonomous vehicle technology companies. But this week Uber did the opposite. The ride-hail company sold off its entire stake in Serve Robotics, the autonomous delivery robot company that spun out of Uber more than five years ago.

Here’s the interesting part. According to some little birds, Serve Robotics was surprised by the sell-off and only learned about it when Uber’s regulatory filing was posted. Uber and Serve are still business partners, and that contract, which puts Serve’s delivery robots on the Uber Eats app, is set to expire in 2027.

Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at [email protected] or my Signal at kkorosec.07, or email Sean O’Kane at [email protected]. 

Deals!

Uber is investing in Galgo, a Chilean fintech company that specializes in extending credit to buy motorcycles, Bloomberg reported. 

Electric mobility startup Yulu raised $93 million in a Series C round comprising $63 million in equity led by GEF Capital Partners and $30 million in debt financing.

Notable reads and other tidbits

Aurora Innovation and Kodiak AI have received permits from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to begin testing their self-driving trucks on public roads in the state. And Kodiak AI has already started. 

Avride said it has surpassed 100,000 autonomous rides on the Uber app in Dallas. There are some caveats here, of course, namely that there is still a human safety operator behind the wheel. Avride wouldn’t supply me with a weekly ridership breakdown, but it has been about two months since the company announced it had reached the 60,000-ride milestone. 

Delta Air Lines is investigating a cybersecurity incident in which an unidentified passenger allegedly created a fake Wi-Fi network on a flight, prompting pilots to alert air traffic control.

Flock announced a series of new policies and tools, claiming they will help curb abuse of its automated license plate camera reader systems and help keep its law enforcement customers accountable.

Ford said it’s on track to complete its $2 billion overhaul of its Louisville Assembly Plant in Kentucky, which will use a new assembly system to build its next-generation of EVs, starting with the midsize Fathom truck. 

Ground Truth, an art project created to raise awareness about housing affordability in New York, created a gadget that will trigger the brakes on Citi rental bikes, making it harder to pedal through rent-burdened neighborhoods, Wired reported.

Hiroshi Okuda, a longtime Toyota executive who served as president and eventually chairman, died this week, according to the company. Okuda took some big swings during his time at Toyota, notably pushing for the gas-electric hybrid Prius vehicle. Bloomberg has a lengthy writeup on Okuda.

Pony.ai and Uber plan to bring 2,000 robotaxis to four cities in Europe as part of an expanded partnership.

Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy took to X this week to promote the DOT’s effort to recruit video gamers as air traffic controllers. According to Duffy, 2,000 candidates have been hired through this program, although he didn’t say if they were all gamers. 

Uber Freight is investigating a cyberattack and data breach that hacking and extortion gang Helix recently took credit for. 

Waymo is expanding in California again after the state’s Public Utilities Commission approved terms of its commercial ride-hailing permit. The company’s robotaxis can now commercially operate (i.e., charge for rides) in a broader territory across the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles. The service can also expand to Sacramento and San Diego — although the Waymo folks say this hasn’t happened yet.

Zoox released its safety case framework, a critical document for any company that wants to build trust with the public and show how and why it thinks its technology is safe enough. This framework is particularly important because today there is no federally mandated test, or AV “driver’s license” so to speak.  

One more thing …

TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 is just a couple of months away and I wanted to flag one guest who might be interesting to you. 

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe will join me onstage at Disrupt, our annual tech conference that brings together thousands of founders, investors, CEOs, policymakers, engineers, and media. Have a question for Scaringe? Shoot me an email and I’ll take a look. 

Disrupt will be held October 13 to October 15 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Check out the programming that’s been announced so far here, and if you don’t already have a ticket, lock in yours before our next price increase on August 22.