Joby Aviation, Inc. has successfully completed a 523-mile flight with a hydrogen-electric air taxi demonstrator, producing only water as a by-product.
The flight was completed on June 24 above Marina, CA, and Joby believes this marks the first time a forward eVTOL flight was powered by only hydrogen. They used their pre-production prototype battery-electric aircraft, and it landed with 10% fuel remaining.
The demonstrator aircraft the result of several years of collaboration between Joby and H2FLY, Joby’s wholly-owned subsidiary based in Stuttgart, Germany. The aircraft features a liquid hydrogen fuel tank, designed and built by Joby, which stores up to 40 kilograms of liquid hydrogen, alongside a reduced mass of batteries. Hydrogen is fed into a fuel cell system, designed and built by H2FLY, to produce electricity, water, and heat. The electricity produced by the hydrogen fuel cell powers the six electric motors on the Joby aircraft, with the batteries providing additional power primarily during take-off and landing.
Joby’s H2FLY team used similar technology to complete another record-breaking flight in September 2023, when they flew the world’s first piloted flight of a conventional liquid hydrogen-electric aircraft using their fuel cell technology.
Joby recently acquired Xwing Inc., an industry leader in the development of autonomous technology for aviation. Xwing has been flying autonomous aircraft since 2020, with 250 fully autonomous flights and more than 500 auto-landings completed to date, using the Superpilot software it developed in-house.
Joby plans to start commercial operations as soon as 2025, using its battery-electric air taxi. The Company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and has raised more than $2 billion of funding to date, including investments from Toyota, Delta Air Lines, SK Telecom, Uber and Baillie Gifford.
JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and CEO, Joby, said: “Traveling by air is central to human progress, but we need to find ways to make it cleaner. With our battery-electric air taxi set to fundamentally change the way we move around cities, we’re excited to now be building a technology stack that could redefine regional travel using hydrogen-electric aircraft.“
Jacob Wilson, (Acting) Branch Chief, AFWERX Agility Prime, said: “Agility Prime has been very supportive of hydrogen-powered aircraft development and testing as it aligns with the program’s goals to advance transformative vertical lift technologies and broader Department of Defense operational energy goals of energy substitution and diversification, and energy demand reduction.”
“Clean hydrogen has the potential to help decarbonize our aviation system for decades to come,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Jeff Marootian.
“Joby is a stellar example of why California continues to lead the world in clean technology and high-tech manufacturing,” said Dee Dee Myers, Senior Advisor to California Governor Gavin Newsom and Director of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development.
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