Uber Elevate Press Release, May 9, 2018
Uber and U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, Army Research Lab (RDECOM ARL), announced on May 8 a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) establishing an ongoing plan to partner around developing and testing the vehicles used in Uber’s proposed urban aviation rideshare network.
Uber Elevate Press Release, May 9, 2018
As part of its second annual Elevate Summit, Uber announced that it has entered a partnership with E-One Moli Energy (Moli). Uber Elevate’s battery team intends to purchase battery cells from Moli, which will be used in future propulsion battery pack prototypes for eVTOL developed by Uber’s vehicle partners.
Uber Elevate Press Release, May 8, 2018
Uber has signed a second Space Act Agreement with NASA to explore concepts and technologies for urban air mobility (UAM). Under this agreement, Uber will share its unique UAM requirements based on their future operational concept for the world’s first urban aviation’s rideshare network, and NASA will use the latest airspace management modeling and simulation algorithms to assess the impacts of integrating UAM operations in an urban environment.
Los Angeles, Calif. (USA) – May 9, 2018 – ChargePoint, the world’s leading and most open electric vehicle (EV) charging network, today revealed a first-ever concept design for two megawatt, high-powered charging of electric aircraft and semi-trucks, including electric vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft.
Uber Elevate Press Release, May 8, 2018 Uber kicks off its second Elevate Summit by officially sharing the design specifications for its electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOL) common reference model.
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Ft. Worth, Texas-based ASTRO Aerospace announced on May 8th that it had acquired Passenger Drone, which had made manned flights last year of its two-seat 16-propeller wingless eVTOL aircraft, now dubbed the AA360. [Note: the company renamed the aircraft "Elroy" in four months later.]
On Nov. 8, 2017, The Boeing Company acquired Aurora Flight Sciences, which bills itself as “an innovative technology company which strives to create smarter aircraft through the development of versatile and intuitive autonomous systems.” Or to put it another way, a company whose entire existence is thinking outside the box.
Workhorse completed the first flight of its two-seat SureFly hybrid eVTOL quadcopter on April 30, 2018, in Cincinnati, Ohio. This was the world’s first manned free flight of a hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft. The SureFly made a 10-second, untethered hover with an experimental flight certification.
On April 24, Aurora Flight Sciences announced that it had reached an agreement with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to conclude the joint hybrid-electric vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) X-Plane program that was developing the XV-24A LightningStrike.
For those who knew to look for it as something potentially revolutionary — rather than some crazy idea for a far-away future — electric VTOL almost broke into the mainstream this year. On Monday, Feb. 26, the day before Heli-Expo began, AHS Executive Director Mike Hirschberg gave a press briefing, entitled, “The Future of Vertical Flight,” providing a perspective on the global vertical flight market and technological development, including the potential of eVTOL.
