飞行汽车来了！eVTOL 专题：Archer、Joby、Wisk

David Friedberg (00:00:00): For our next panel, we are going to have a quick introduction to each of the 3 electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle companies, the eVTOL companies. We'll see a video for introducing Joby. And then, Adam from Archer is going to introduce Archer, and then Brian from Wiss, and then we're gonna have a conversation. Be back in a minute. Adam Goldstein (00:02:02): I founded Archer in 2018 to change the way the world moves. Urban congestion isn't sustainable. This leaves the average American stuck in traffic for dozens of hours per year. To combat that challenge, we built Midnight. The all electric aircraft purpose built to fly back to back trips over congested cities. Midnight takes off vertically like a helicopter, then its propellers transition down to fly like an airplane. It's designed to be piloted and carry 4 passengers and can travel at speeds up to a 150 miles per hour. Since 2018, we've made an incredible amount of progress to bringing the midnight aircraft to market. Our nearly 1,000 person team has designed, built, and tested the key enabling technologies to bring electric aviation to market. This has enabled us to raise nearly 1 and a half $1,000,000,000 to date. However, our goal is the same since day 1, to get to commercial launch. Our high volume manufacturing facility in Georgia will open up later this year, and we have incredible partners that are helping us bring this vision to life. Stellantis, the owner of Jeep, Ram, and Maserati, has invested nearly $300,000,000 to date. United Airlines has ordered up to 1 and a half $1,000,000,000 of midnight aircraft. And with Southwest, our goal is to offer passengers 3 hour multimodal journeys across California. We have an industry leading contract with the air force, and we recently delivered our first aircraft as part of that contract. In LA, we recently announced plans for flight networks connecting SoFi Stadium, USC, LAX, and beyond. We can't wait to bring midnight to a city near you. Brian Yutko (00:04:43): Peter Thiel reminded us yesterday that flying cars are the peak of the hardware revolution that never quite happened. But as you just saw, we're closer than ever to making it a reality. The aircraft that the 3 of our companies design take off vertically like helicopters. They do a complex maneuver to transition onto the wing into wing borne flight and fly like an aircraft. When the founder of our company, Larry Page, first joined this mission, the technologies that enable these aircraft to fly were just starting to become possible. The team that I lead has built the enabling technologies in electrification and autonomy that's making this possible. You see the prior 5 generations of aircraft that we've designed here on the screen behind me. And that iterative design build approach has enabled us to get to the point where we are building now generation 6, which is the first candidate for an FAA certification of a passenger autonomous aircraft. This aircraft is designed to take advantage of all of the prior technologies that we developed through those prior iterations and to operate without a pilot onboard on those missions. There's 2 technology trends that we are all using to create these aircraft: boaters and the same simplification that's coming to your cars, and batteries and the same advances that are coming to your cars and also to your cell phones. And second, autonomy. And autonomy has a lot of parts to it. So we have to, for the first time, in a commercially certifiable way, show how we can operate and supervise an aircraft from the ground, display information in in a way that is safe from a human factor standpoint to supervise that aircraft, to use sensors on the airplane in the same way that you would for an autonomous ground vehicle, to create the software and the computation to be able to then fly that aircraft autonomously. But when you make robots, people don't go away. They change what they're doing. Brian Yutko (00:06:40): And so we use those aircraft to actually do deployment testing in networks. Here in Los Angeles, yeah, last year, we flew the 1st electric VTOL aircraft in the Los Angeles area, and we showed what's possible with these aircraft and how people can engage with them. We are also working on the human interface with air traffic control, because, again, even though we have an autonomous aircraft, our aircraft still has to interface with today's air traffic control system. Like what you saw yesterday from Waymo, we use existing flying cars, a k a helicopters that are piloted, to take that sensor package and those computation abilities and put them onto a piloted helicopter to perfect the algorithms that we use for doing things like detecting and avoiding other traffic in environments, where there's different lighting and where the aircraft that you might collide with, potentially, that you want to avoid is above or below the horizon. We also have to be able to fly these aircraft without the presence of GPS. As we see in conflicts around the world today, we cannot rely on GPS to be able to fly an autonomous aircraft. So now once you have that technology stack, you need to turn it into an actual airplane. And all the things that Peter talked about about potentially being a bad industry to to go into, in the nineties are now becoming ever more important. The ability to, do aerodynamics, to do mechanical engineering, to create these aircraft are now more important than ever. And, by the end of this year, we'll be flying this aircraft, which will be the first attempt at certifying a passenger carrying autonomous aircraft. So let's bring the guys out, and we'll talk about it. Alright. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:08:31): Well, I think that there's a lot of people that probably need an introduction to VTOL in a more basic way, before we talk about the technology, whether it's the actual vehicle itself, or whether it's the, the world's best pilot, if you will. Mhmm. For the folks out here, if they are going to interact with these systems, whether autonomous or not, what do you think are going to be the biggest issues that they are going to care about and will want resolved before they see it in their community? Maybe, Joe Biden, if you wanna start. JoeBen Bevirt (00:09:06): Yeah. I think the number one issue in, you know, for everybody when you're getting in an aircraft is is this going to be safe? But then for both the the passengers, what they care about is is something that's going to dramatically change the way they they move around their cities and save them time. And in order to do that, you need to have takeoff and landing locations that are located both close to where you are and close to where you want to go. And so priority, 2 through 9 in people's priority stack is about noise and making an acoustic signature that's gonna, get communities to see this as a real advantage and something that increases the value of of living in that community because you're you're close to this new mode of transportation. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:09:56): Do you guys think that when you see a1000 of these things flying around let's let's just take a place, in Menlo Park, California, are they going to be forced to have very specific sort of, like, air highways that they have to adhere to? Or what is the best thinking right now in terms of how the regulatory bodies are going to sort of enable you guys to actually fly commercially as quickly as possible? Hey, Brian. Turn to the Adam Goldstein (00:10:27): If we if we just take a step back, the product exists. They're called helicopters, and a helicopter is actually way more complex than what we're building. We're actually building a much more simplified version of what exists. It's safer. It's fully redundant. And so it should inspire confidence for people to to want to come and take these vehicles. The way they'll start, though, is gonna be really slow. If you think about every major city in the world, they have hospitals. Those hospitals have helicopters. This product exists everywhere. So if you took all 3 of us, you took our most bullish estimates that we have, and you tripled them, we still would not even replace helicopters. So to get to the point where you're asking thousands of vehicles in the air over 1 city or even 100 is pretty far away. We could all deploy tens of 1,000 of vehicles. We could the 3 of us be $1,000,000,000,000 companies, and there still would not be $1,000,000 well, hopefully, there still would not be, you know, thousands of vehicles in the air. But to make the product really, really great, you do want liquidity. You do want a lot of vehicles in on dense roots, so you don't have to worry about is it available? It's not available like an Uber. Right? You just it's thumbs up, it's available, or it's thumbs down, it's not available. It doesn't matter what seat you get. It saves you time. That's what we're all trying to get. But I think just to frame it Chamath Palihapitiya (00:11:43): Sorry, Adam. Is it is it a thing where it is like Uber where there's going to be a version where you get in with people you don't know, or you think this is just like one person provisions it for themselves, and then they go from point A to point B? Adam Goldstein (00:11:54): No, absolutely. The vision is a service that's available for everyone. The good news is you can scale these vehicles because they're just much more simple than helicopters. We don't have all the limiting factors that helicopters have. So you can put a lot more from the air. You can push the prices way down and make it very affordable. JoeBen Bevirt (00:12:11): Brian, yesterday, we heard from dramatically faster trip. So you're you're in it for a few minutes to get across LA instead of in in Uber where you might be sitting in traffic for an hour or 2. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:12:21): Right. Yesterday, we heard from Takedra, from the CEO of Waymo. Their first launch city was Phoenix. The layout was good. But mostly, it was really regulatorily, Amenable. Amenable. Yeah. Brian, what is the version of Phoenix for eVTOL? Is there a city somewhere that has said, we want this now. Adam Goldstein (00:12:44): Come and help us figure this out? Brian Yutko (00:12:45): Yeah. Houston Houston is is where we're working most specifically. And it's not just because Woody lives there either. But seriously, Houston is, you know, the airport network in Houston is actually quite good, connecting a couple of the airports around, the Houston area. It turns out that operating at airports initially is actually quite a good place to start. Because, like I said, you know, these aircraft, they come with a footprint. You know, they really come with, like, people and operations. And if you've ever seen an airport tarmac area, you can't just drop that in the middle of a city on day 1. So starting at airports as an initial operating area is quite good. It turns out, you know, what you saw in that video was, from an airspace integration standpoint and where you're going on routes and so on, New Zealand is has been incredibly forward thinking in terms of how to evolve their airspace network so that they have more, digital communications, more of an ability to integrate uncrewed aircraft with crewed aircraft in the same airspace. And so we've been doing quite a lot of work in New Zealand on that front. Adam Goldstein (00:13:47): But hold on. I I mean, I think it's, to me, super clear this does not start in the US. I really think it starts internationally. I think the regulatory environment here Adam. Both both of us work in the UAE pretty extensively. I mean, if I'm gonna guess just on the press that you put out, Joban met the head of the, civil aviation authority in the UAE yesterday. I'm leaving tonight on a plane to go meet him as well. And so, you know, we are targeting Abu Dhabi. They've been targeting Dubai. And the reason is there is a, you know, a very heavy support for new innovation. And the challenge like, the the reason why I feel like all 3 of us are up on stage here is probably because of the the whole Woody video that we just watched. We all learned about NASA as young kids and were inspired by new things. Yeah. But the challenge is the existing environment today makes that very hard. And these are companies that were started in America with American engineers that have raised capital from the American venture community that are listed on the American stock exchanges, yet we still can't launch in America, and that is really challenging. And I think part of it is back to what Bill Gurley talked about last year, regulatory capture. The walls are huge to climb. And in fact, the more things go bad with the incumbents, the harder it is for us. I don't think that's done on purpose, but that's very challenging Jason Calacanis (00:15:06): for us. JoeBen Bevirt (00:15:06): I I I would I would say that the amount of bipartisan support on on both sides of the aisle in Washington is off the charts. The amount of local support, support with states, it the you know, yesterday I was in Montreal at the International Civil Aviation Association Conference, where they convened. This is the first time and they were convening 1800 people to focus on advanced air mobility. And so this is really exciting to see how much momentum there is and it's imperative that the US continue to lead. Aviation is one of our most important exports. It's been vital to our economy and it is really, really important that we we lean forward, and we make the the certification process and and Chamath Palihapitiya (00:15:57): Just just double click on this for a second. I can see how Joe, Ben and Adam, you guys, pure play startups, you know, you have to find the willing parent. But you have the benefit of Boeing. Mhmm. And is that why your answer was Houston? Is because they have that, I guess, regulatory gravitas to be able to go and help there? Or no, you're still mostly on your own trying to fix it? Adam Goldstein (00:16:21): No. No. Brian Yutko (00:16:22): Yeah. So we so the yeah. The journey of our company was obviously, you know, started by Larry. Started by Larry Page. Became Kitty Hawk, turned into a joint venture. And and, and and eventually, we sold the company to Boeing, last year. And, so we still operate as an independent company, a lot like the Waymo, Google relationship right now. For us, the difference is we're really trying to pioneer the pathway to the introduction of autonomous aircraft at the same time. And that's a longer journey, so Joe, Ben and Adam are are going to be operating before us. There's no doubt. Because piloted aircraft are coming before these uncrewed aircraft. I think autonomy is key to the future of aviation in the small airplane space. If you look at the the, the the the causes of of incidents and the accident rates in helicopters right now, they're just unacceptable. And, and I think that that can be solved by automation. I'm really passionate about that. So for us, we're on a longer journey, and the question is then, on that journey, how do we make sure that the US leads in that? And we're trying to pioneer the regulatory pathway to ensure that it happens here in the United States. But we're also working around the globe, like I mentioned in New Zealand, where there are regulators who potentially want to lean forward and innovate on airspace or some other aspects of the problem that we're trying to solve. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:17:41): I mean, Adam Adam mentioned the concept of regulatory capture, but one of our besties, Skye Dayton, who's on Joby's board, wrote this great essay. And one of the things that's clear is that a lot of the pushback to the vision that you have, Brian, actually comes from the pilots' unions themselves. Right? I think I it's a bit of a weird set of incentives. Now do Adam Goldstein (00:18:01): you wanna just talk about that for a second? Brian Yutko (00:18:02): I think it's less salacious than that and more, clinical. I mean, the the and I'll give an example. Well, so I have my vision for the future is that we're going to have a prolific amount of uncrewed small aircraft that are operating, doing the kind of missions that we're just talking about, but that large crew pilot large aircraft are gonna be piloted for probably as far as the eye can see. I think the practical aspect of it, honestly, is that in 2023 here's a statistic for you that just blows my mind as a developer of airplanes. In 2023, there were 30,000,000 global flights, carried billions of passenger enplanements, number of people that got on board the airplane, scheduled service, you know, airlines, 0 accidents. 0. What? 0 in 2023. 0. Wow. So so it's it's less salacious than than, there's a cabal that's trying not to certificate things. There is a natural conservatism in the system of, holy cow, we've done it. It's working. Don't change it. So when new technology shows up, I understand the perspective of a regulator that's sitting on the other side of that wall and is saying, man, this is kind of working. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:13): Now Okay. And then just to put you on Adam Goldstein (00:19:14): the spot. I mean, I can see, Chamath Palihapitiya (00:19:15): you know, when Joe, Ben and Adam say, hey, point a to point b, instead of hours in traffic, you're there in 10 minutes. If there are really no pilot errors, unlike in cars, where there's still far too many unnecessary deaths, how do you measure the incremental justification for the investment, let alone the reason to spend? Brian Yutko (00:19:35): The statistic that I just gave you is for large aircraft scheduled air carriers. If you then look at the small airplane market or you look at helicopter markets, it is it is orders of magnitude. It's well, it's infinity more. You know? So but it's it's it's way worse. And so the question is, how do you bring the level of safety of those large aircraft? How do you bring that same level of safety down into the front? Jason Calacanis (00:19:56): Of recreational pilots. Adam Goldstein (00:19:56): You have to start. You just have to start. I mean, there is definitely this panel exists in China. And guess what? There's 2 groups that are already certified there. They started. That's how you do it. You have to get moving. You have to set an environment where we can all start flying stuff when we can do it a to b. And when you're Jason Calacanis (00:20:13): using a large aircraft, you're dividing the 2 pilots' expense amongst 300 seats or a 100 seats. And in this case, you would have a pilot on a Joby flight with which really, the pilot's not doing anything. There's they're not flying it. So it's oh, they're there to make the passengers feel safer is my understanding. Yeah? JoeBen Bevirt (00:20:34): The the pilot you know, there there are even with with what Brian's doing, with the incredible pioneering work on, on autonomy, you you still have somebody on the ground who's, making sure that the weather is gonna be safe and, lots of other operational logistics. The benefit is you get to take that person out of the aircraft and put them on the ground, so you get to put another passenger in the aircraft. You get a lot of operational flexibility, because you're the the you don't necessarily have to have the pilot and the plane at the same location at the same time. A pilot can, over time, begin to operate multiple aircraft and flight. Jason Calacanis (00:21:11): Doing a Joby? Because my understanding is it's automated, so they're sitting there just monitoring it. JoeBen Bevirt (00:21:17): They're making sure that all of the operations are gonna go safe. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:21:20): But they're Adam Goldstein (00:21:20): not autonomous. Flying. There's a there's sticks. Right? I mean JoeBen Bevirt (00:21:24): Yeah. There is the option for the the the pilot to fly fly with the sticks as well. Jason Calacanis (00:21:28): So in an emergency situation, they would take over, but it's autopilot essentially. JoeBen Bevirt (00:21:33): There are a lot of Yeah. A a lot of computer systems that are helping the pilot fly. Jason Calacanis (00:21:37): And when one rotor goes down I mean, one of the great things about this is when you have a helicopter, you know, a rotor breaks, you die, essentially. JoeBen Bevirt (00:21:48): We have layer a layer of redundancy. We have 6 6 propellers, and each one's driven by separate motors with each separate inverter, with each a separate battery pack. And so it's just, you know, the same thing with the flight computers and the, Jason Calacanis (00:22:00): Everything's massively redundant. Exactly. What would it take JoeBen Bevirt (00:22:02): And that's what we did in big commercial airlines, which is why, you get the incredible safety that that Brian was talking about. Jason Calacanis (00:22:08): Yeah. I mean, we haven't had a passenger death in the United States. I think the last one was 2009, and the last 3 passenger jets that went down in the United States were all regional jets, which we all know that there's a collection of problems there. So what would it take, theoretically, when you're doing your, you know, edge cases, what are the edge cases that are the most challenging in terms of safety? JoeBen Bevirt (00:22:30): Well, so, you know, with our initial certification, we are not certifying for flight in known icing, for example. So if you if you live in the north northeast, you know, there will be a few percent of the time where we won't be able to offer David Friedberg (00:22:48): some You'll Jason Calacanis (00:22:48): just ground them during ice conditions. You're not going to JFK when it's snowing. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:22:52): Well, you JoeBen Bevirt (00:22:53): know, when it's snowing, you may be able to go. But if it's there's certain conditions where where you get heavy icing for Jason Calacanis (00:22:58): icing in terms of concerns and things that could make these go down. JoeBen Bevirt (00:23:04): Exactly. So Jason Calacanis (00:23:04): you Is there anything else, though, that could, David Friedberg (00:23:06): you know What's, like, the the wind speed or gusting kind of condition max and so on? JoeBen Bevirt (00:23:11): So we're actually very tolerant to that. It was actually it was interesting yesterday. David Friedberg (00:23:14): Probably better than a winged aircraft, I would imagine. Right? Right. Yeah. JoeBen Bevirt (00:23:18): And and so there's these these folks at NASA who are working on wildfire prevention. Yeah. And they came they they came and did a not the wildfire prevention folks, but NASA came and did an acoustic survey where they put out, a whole array of microphones. And we flew the aircraft in hover and transition, overflight, etcetera, and measured the acoustic signature and showed that it was really low and could fit in the environment. In terms of, but yesterday I was having a conversation with them on wildfire prevention. They're like, these kinds of aircraft are gonna be game changers for wildfire because with helicopters, they can't handle really turbulent conditions. Right. And you've got lots of convection from the wildfire. David Friedberg (00:23:56): And And you have 6 motors. JoeBen Bevirt (00:23:57): We have 6 rotors, and so there's this thing called vortex ring state that, affects vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, and you aren't going to have all 6 rotors go into vortex ring state at the same time. And you can also one of the cool things they found out with the Osprey is if you just tilt the rotors forward, that you can very, very quickly get out of vortex ring state. So basically, these new new class of aircraft and what you can do with electric propulsion, and I I don't think we've talked about that enough, is is what a game changer electric propulsion is. David Friedberg (00:24:25): Can you talk about the acoustic issue? So give us some context for the decibel tolerance. Where and what was, you know, in a city, and give us a comparison to stuff that exists today, a big truck, diesel truck, helicopter? Like, and what do we need to be at for this to be ubiquitously accepted in cities? And then what's the technology needed to get the acoustic breakthroughs needed? JoeBen Bevirt (00:24:47): Yeah. So the background noise level in in cities is around 65 decibels. So we set that as our threshold for this is the level that we want, want things, you know, want our aircraft to be below during takeoff and landing. You don't wanna be below You David Friedberg (00:25:01): don't wanna be beyond background. Right. We JoeBen Bevirt (00:25:03): wanna be below 45 decibels in overflight, and we've achieved both of those goals. You know, you asked about other things. You know, I think a garbage truck is 80 or 90 decibels. Every They're the worst. Exactly. The worst. David Friedberg (00:25:17): Like JoeBen Bevirt (00:25:17): Every 10 decibels is an order of magnitude more noise energy. So it's, you know, a jet engine is like a 110 decibels. Helicopters are between 80 and a 100 decibels. The other thing about helicopters that people find really annoying is it's this low frequency Wop Wop, And that low frequency sound travels long distance through the atmosphere and David Friedberg (00:25:38): So what's the tech needed? To, like, JoeBen Bevirt (00:25:40): it shakes buildings and Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:25:41): I think it I think What David Friedberg (00:25:42): was yeah. What's the tech needed to bring the acoustic like, how hard is Brian Yutko (00:25:46): Well, I mean, JoeBen Bevirt (00:25:46): we you know, when I when I started Joby in 2009, so it was 15, 15 years ago, this week. So it's like I've been working on this a long time. I've been dreaming about it since I was a kid. And it's it's incredible to see the industry that we've built. And, and again, yesterday to see, like, thousands of people gather just to focus on all of the issues of bringing this to their cities around the world. So that that's really exciting. And the the, you know, the the rollout and and the impact that this is gonna have on cities is just really, really exciting. David Friedberg (00:26:22): So let me ask you guys You're Adam Goldstein (00:26:23): practically just you're spinning the propellers slower. That's what you're doing. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:26:27): That's what Adam Goldstein (00:26:27): electric engines do. That just creates lower noise. That that gets you, like, 90% of the benefit. And then from there, you work to all the little efficiencies to get that stuff out. David Friedberg (00:26:36): So let me ask you guys about, like, the the convenience of owning a car. And, like, America kind of popularized this idea that everyone should own a car, and then we all got a car. The benefit of a car is it's point to point. I can go from any point a to any point b. How do you guys think about the challenge of it's such a pain in the ass to go to a port, just like it's a pain in the ass to go to a bus station, take a bus or, you know, subway, go to a spot. New York at work, where things are dense enough, but, like, in most cities in the United States, this is, like, it is preferable to take a car, because I can do point a to point b, and my convenience, which my time, is always faster taking a car. How do you think about the calculus of the benefit here when I have to go to a port to be able to take the vehicle to the next port? JoeBen Bevirt (00:27:20): I think you're spot on. I think of where we are today as very similar to where the automotive industry was in the 1890s, where it was before we had the ability to mass produce cars. We we were building tens and then hundreds of cars, and, that didn't give the scale. And so what we were using cars for was taxis. We are in a similar mode today where we are going to use these aircraft as taxis. We still need to save people time, and so there's only going to be select routes where this is David Friedberg (00:27:49): a game changer because of JoeBen Bevirt (00:27:50): the multimodal nature, where you need to, and you may not have a takeoff and landing location exactly where you want to leave from and go to. But over time, if we can get the acoustic signature down, if we can make these aircraft even quieter than they are today, rather than needing to go to a dedicated Vertiport to do this, The dream is to eventually be able to land them at your house. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:28:12): Adam, let's talk about, propulsion for a second. Energy density costs, those trade offs, speed, these are all variables that kind of just work opposing each other. What were some design decisions you guys made, and did you have to remake some of those? Did you change your mind at some point? And just walk us through that process. Adam Goldstein (00:28:33): The biggest challenge, I think, of building these aircraft is just the time it takes to do it. It is very expensive and it does not fit any typical model, meaning the venture guys don't like it. And so they're like, sorry, you want a $1,000,000,000 up front to build this? Like, that's terrible. You rejected me, you rejected me. I don't think I mailed you. Like, everybody rejected probably all of us up here. And so it's not a typical you know what I mean? Like, mom, that's the reality. So there was this crazy period of time in 2021 with the capital markets opened up, it was a dream scenario. Totally. You raised a lot of money from the public markets. That was nuts. So that allowed this to happen. And then from there, it for for me, what we did was we said, okay, what is the business case? Meaning, we thought when we looked at, like, what are these? We call them hero routes where there's a lot of people doing these trips like Manhattan to JFK. It's like 30,000,000 people go from Manhattan to 1 of the 3 big airports in New York. Okay? So all we have to do David Friedberg (00:29:31): That's a no brainer. Adam Goldstein (00:29:32): Yeah. All we have to do is have a couple around the city, which already exist. There's downtown, Wall Street heliport, West Side East Chamath Palihapitiya (00:29:39): Side heliport. Yeah. Adam Goldstein (00:29:39): And just put them into the 3 airports. And that'll be an amazing thing to start with. Okay. So short routes, 20 to 50 mile routes. Now let's design an aircraft around that, the fastest thing we can do to get to market so we don't die before the investors decide, nah, we're kind of like done with this one. Now onto the next thing. Oh, AI. Here, let's everybody go all in on AI. And so I'm just moving as fast as we can. So that was the biggest trade off. So it was always, what is the minimum thing we need to do to get that done? So you need to look at speed range and payload. Payload is definitely the hardest because batteries are heavy and there's just physics you're always fighting. And then speed, the difference between these planes wanna fly around a 120 miles per hour. If you go faster, it's just more drag. It just kills your battery faster. So, you know, the difference between a 120, a 150 on a 10 mile flight doesn't really matter. It's more of how do you go at least that 20 to 50 mile route and go at least, you know, call it a 120 miles per hour and do that as fast as possible. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:30:38): And what kind of batteries what kind of batteries did you guys choose? JoeBen Bevirt (00:30:41): What chemical Adam Goldstein (00:30:42): engineers? Cells, commercial off the shelf stuff, Moly Cell makes. You can find those cells today. There's millions of them that are made in power tools and super cars and pretty conventional David Friedberg (00:30:52): What's what's the range? Adam Goldstein (00:30:54): The range of the aircraft? Yeah. We're designing to go up to a 100 miles, but the real design is around back to rapid back to back 20 to 50 mile trips. David Friedberg (00:31:02): What do you guys all need in terms of battery technology improvement from where we sit today, or do you not? And what's on the horizon in terms of battery technology improvements? What does that unlock in terms of range? JoeBen Bevirt (00:31:12): Yeah. So the batteries that we're certifying our aircraft with are have a specific energy of about 300 watt hours per kilogram. To put that in context, when I started the company in in 2009, we had cells that had sufficient specific power, to do a vertical takeoff, but also, we're at about a 170 watt hours per kilogram. So we've almost doubled the specific energy in the cells over the last 15 years. That we have cells in our lab, and then there's a third dimension which really matters is this is the life. And, so we have the the cells were, taking the certification are give us a 10,025 mile flights. So our our kind of sweet spot is is also in that, in those, shorter range flights, and we wanna be able to do a lot of flights between, between replacements both for the environmental impact of it, but also from the economics of replacing those battery packs. Jason Calacanis (00:32:09): And when the the plane takes off, that's a lot of, energy usage. The the wings tilt forward, and now you're flying more like these Ospreys as a plane. The energy goes way down the consumption. And then on landing, you gotta be very careful and use a lot more energy. Is that correct? JoeBen Bevirt (00:32:25): Yeah. And there's there's different trade offs you can make. Basically, the more propulsors you have, the smaller each propulsor is and the and the heavier your disc loading, and the higher the amount of power you're using in hover, the the harder you're pulling on the batteries. But then more propulsors also gives you more redundancy. So there's this, there's a trade there. Jason Calacanis (00:32:49): Breast tax, when do you each think we're gonna pick, a quarter a year? So, you know, Q4 2025, 2nd quarter 2026. You all have to answer it. You agreed backstage. And Americans will be able to give money to get in one of these, not a test flight, you know, in a major city in America, to to when we all be able to use it. Not just yours? Brian Yutko (00:33:18): These yeah. These guys should answer for themselves, but I think they'll get it done in, in 2026. And you should yell at me. Pick a quarter. Oh, man. I don't know. Q1. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:28): Q1. Q1. Q1. Brian Yutko (00:33:29): Okay. 26. I wanna give them some heat. We'll be we'll be a couple years after that. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:33:33): But that's an incredible thing. I mean, we're less you know, a year plus away. That's Yeah. That's crazy. Brian Yutko (00:33:39): Now you should, tell tell me how you feel about my expectations. Yeah. Adam Goldstein (00:33:44): I think pretty clearly there's a route to do this internationally next year. And so I think we'll launch with passengers next year. He said in the US. I know I'll start there. I'll start there in in in 2025. My job is to make sure we have a safe aircraft. I think probably Q4. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:01): Perfect. Adam Goldstein (00:34:01): I think we have a my job is to create a safe aircraft. If Pete Buttigieg called and said, hey, there's a way to do this in the US. I'm gonna help cut through all the red tape and we're gonna help you get it done. Like, my phone's on. I'm ready. Call me. I will find a way to do it. I'd love to Jason Calacanis (00:34:15): have Pete, why do we invite Pete? He seems dynamic. David Friedberg (00:34:17): So he was actually, we, we nearly had him. Yeah. Very close. JoeBen Bevirt (00:34:22): So, I I think we're on a on a time line, which we publicly announced to, to begin commercial service, in the UAE next year. You we will not Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:51): in terms of being JoeBen Bevirt (00:34:52): able to buy a ticket. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:34:53): Have you figured out the flight profile that you're going to start with? Like, it's airport to X or something like that? Adam Goldstein (00:34:58): Or JoeBen Bevirt (00:34:58): We have, 4 Vertiports that are, that we're planning to build in in Dubai and, the RTA, which is the Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:07): I would like one from the airport to the Wynn, which opens in 2027. Jason Calacanis (00:35:12): Yeah. From Dubai to the new Wynn. JoeBen Bevirt (00:35:14): A little far. Because it's Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:15): in Iraq, so it's a little far away. David Friedberg (00:35:17): There's a Wynn in Dubai? That's okay. Brian Yutko (00:35:18): The restaurant. JoeBen Bevirt (00:35:19): Wynn. Yeah. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:35:23): Well, kidding aside, I want to talk to you guys. We talked yesterday with Elon about this. You know, he said it's taken longer to get approval to launch Starship than it did to take launch. So this sort of push on regulatory, we're hearing over and over again. You work with the FAA closely. Can you just describe the path to bring them along, get the certifications that you need, and how much of a push or a pull that is in each of your businesses? Yeah. Brian Yutko (00:35:49): I mean, I guess I'll just start, you know, obviously, from the autonomy standpoint, specifically, you know, we're trying to push the frontier. And so whenever you're engaging with a regulator, no matter if it's aviation or if it's biotech or some other thing, if you're really, really on the frontier, it means that the regulator doesn't necessarily understand the technology any better than you do. And so part of it needs to be kind of a journey, where you're going together to really learn how to make it safe. At some point, you need to be regulated. You know, there needs to be a process of you putting forth, you know, engaging in what are the requirements, you putting forth, here's how we're going to meet those requirements, and then there's a process. I think that, you know, honestly, from my standpoint, that actually works okay. I just wish that it was a little more responsive or engaging on some of the, like, deep technical subjects that we have to advance. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:36:41): Do they have the people inside the industry? Brian Yutko (00:36:43): That's part of the challenge. So part of the challenge is that in aviation, partially because of what Peter Thiel said yesterday, you know, there's sort of a generation of You know, if you went into aviation when I went into aviation, the demographics were completely upside down. People were retiring, new people weren't coming into the industry. And so many of the experts in the FAA that that have regulated some of these systems, that have created really safe airplanes, have retired. There's a lot of new people coming into the industry, which is great, but, don't necessarily have the expertise of having built some of the systems that we're now building. And so there's some way that we almost need to get people to come through the industry, and then David Friedberg (00:37:20): I think this is a really important point, and it's counter to what RFK Jr. Has been saying over and over again, and this is why I push back on him. I'm sorry, this is off topic. There is a very important reason to have people from industry become part of the regulatory framework for regulating the industry. Because if they don't, they don't know how, and they're going to have a complete aversion to embracing technological innovation. That's why I think it's important that there is a rotation of people that are, you know, consequently not economically motivated in some way, but that understand the technology and can motivate it. But in that framework, let me ask you guys, in markets where there is a regulatory framework that allows for accelerated output of innovation let's take China for an example. There's a good a b test maybe underway right now. What companies are doing eVTOL technology in China? How good are they? And then given the way that the Chinese government can kind of step in and accelerate outcomes, are we going to see and are we seeing eVTOL technology, you know, kind of coming to market fast, and then in a kind of accelerated way in China, like we're seeing with nuclear and other tools that the government is saying is a priority and a mandate? JoeBen Bevirt (00:38:29): Yeah. I mean, you have you have Ehang and Auto Flight, and they're, tech companies. And, you know, a bunch of them are making great progress. There's a lot of enthusiasm in in China. The regulatory, pathway there is, more board leaning, I I think, as as Adam pointed out. And, I think you're gonna see more more rapid iteration iteration. I think the good news here in the US is that the FAA is, in the process of releasing something called Mosaic, which for aircraft that are smaller than ours, aircraft with with, like, 2 passengers in them, more of a personal ownership type of thing, that's gonna allow much more, rapid development and a lighter a lighter touch from the FAA. Just to put this in context, the FAA has done, I think, an incredible job, and they've really been leaning in. When I went and first talked to them in 2009, they they thought this was, like, absolutely crazy. Like, they just did not think we were gonna be able to build an electric aircraft, let alone one that can take off and land vertically and which was quiet in all these all these different dimensions. We then, you know, began working with them regularly in 2015, began formal certification in 2018, had our, stage 4g1 in 2020, g 2, and and then g 3. And now we're working on stage 4. So it you know, with each, you know, we are building momentum. We are writing all the rules. It's very heavy lifting. And Joben Brian Yutko (00:39:54): Joben told me once, because Joben has been kind of the first through the through the pipeline there, and he said, I feel like a pipe cleaner for for how to certify these things. And, I guess I there's one thing I would just throw into the regulatory, like, context, just just because I I think you bring up a good point. It's not like these things were sitting on the shelf and a regulator was sitting somewhere saying, you can't use that. We have been on a journey that we just all talked about, getting these things ready. So they're now just at the point where they're ready. And the question is, can we take that first step in the US to really get it done? Chamath Palihapitiya (00:40:27): And and does the US do they approach that from a culture of, let's just try something. If we get it wrong, we can iterate it. Or it's is it more, we must get this right because there's all kinds of consequences, political or other things? JoeBen Bevirt (00:40:42): It's so Adam Goldstein (00:40:42): much more simple than that. They wanna do it. The people at the top are actually genuinely very excited. Former FAA administrator Billy Nolan stepped down from his role, joined Archer. The new one, Mike Whitaker came from an EBITDALL company. They were very excited to do it. The challenges with probably most regulatory, you know, setups is not a lot of incentive. It's not like there's a downside to not doing it. A lot of disincentive to do it, meaning if something goes bad, it's there's only downside there. And it's a slog, and it's hard. Like, this is hard. This is not easy to go through all this. There's the incentives are not great. And then on top of all that, there's no policy saying, hey, America needs to be innovative. We need to go do this. Let's go and get it. Jason Calacanis (00:41:22): Then why is there no mandate? Like, it would be great if some leader said, you guys need to get this done, and we need to have these things flying safely in the next 36 months. Like, how does that happen in our current system? I can understand how it happened today. Adam Goldstein (00:41:37): Put out a video on it. He put out a video, agenda number, whatever, 39 or something like that, where he talked about building future cities. I'm guessing he went to Dubai and then I'm sorry. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:41:47): But is that something, Adam, that we could change through an executive order? Adam Goldstein (00:41:51): I think it's culture you have to change. Meaning, like, we will do this and break down all the barriers to get it done because it's not that hard. Like, you can, like we've all laid out the rules to certify. Like, why can't you let us just go do the tests? And then if we do the tests, you check them off. We're good. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:42:05): It shouldn't be that easy. Jason Calacanis (00:42:06): If you're a bureaucrat, if you're working in one of these organizations, if it goes poorly, you're in big trouble. If it goes well But are you? Well, the SEC had, you know, this mandate. It's very similar to, you know, allow more accredited investors, sophisticated investors, allow people, you know, to to take tests, and to just allow more access to private companies and investing, which would be good for a Brian Yutko (00:42:28): company to Jason Calacanis (00:42:28): do well. And they and they have slow walked it. So I think that's part of the problem JoeBen Bevirt (00:42:33): is why Just to Chamath Palihapitiya (00:42:33): just to build on what I'm saying. Okay. Let's just say the SEC doesn't do anything. Or they do it and they make a mistake. Nobody at the SCC will get fired. Just like I I don't think the culture is that if, you know, something if a commercial airline has an issue, or for example, in the 73 Max, 737 Max issue. Did more people at Boeing get fired? Did more people at the FAA get fired? Did nobody get fired? Nobody. Brian Yutko (00:42:55): Aviation aviation is different on the like, when the comparison with the SCC as an example. Like, aviation is different. Like, actually, aerospace is different. And I would just call out one thing that I saw on the stage yesterday, which really hit me. If you saw Elon's face when he talked about the safety of the astronaut, like, you saw his face. Chamath Palihapitiya (00:43:12): He was almost crying. Brian Yutko (00:43:12): Yes. He was almost crying. And that's what aerospace is all about. And so there is a, the the reason that the industry has been able to get to that unbelievable statistic that I just talked about is that it's gone through awful accidents. It's gone through terrible things that have happened and have turned into the rules that we are now all being regulated towards. What's happening now is that we're showing up with new technology. So I'll give you an example. Like, regulations, they currently say, the pilot shall do x. And it says that, you know, 50 times. But we don't have a pilot. And so when we're showing up, we have to kind of rewrite what that is. I understand why it says the pilot shall do x. It says that because there were accidents in the past that have now been regulated out of existence. Adam Goldstein (00:43:54): But you're also looking at it from the the negative point of view. How many lives could be saved if we got this stuff into pick a country, India or Africa. We could bring clean water and medicine and supplies to people. Disaster relief. It doesn't cost $10,000 an hour to fly a Blackhawk anymore into some disaster relief situation. It costs $500 an hour, and we can send 50 immediately, then they're always available. The uptime is super huge. And so I actually think you could save a lot of lives too, JoeBen Bevirt (00:44:20): if you And what about saving lives here in the US? We lose 40,000 people every year Brian Yutko (00:44:24): on the roads, which is insane. JoeBen Bevirt (00:44:26): And we fly almost as many miles as we drive. So like, driving is more than 10000 times more dangerous per passenger mile than flying is. So we can actually, by moving people into the air for their daily transportation, make the, you you know, save 1,000 and tens of thousands of lives. But we need to get the technology out there. We need to start learning. I hope, Peter Thiel had David Friedberg (00:44:50): it wrong, and we are going to get flying cars in the next couple of years. And I want to thank you all for being here. Please join me in everything.