SANTA CRUZ—People make pizza dough from scratch in the kitchen, while some are deep into coding in a high-ceilinged wood building in the middle of a redwood forest, and others are helping build a prototype down a dirt road past a garden that's being tended to by expert hands.
This is just the typical scene at Santa Cruz-based startup Joby Aviation, a company that hopes to kill long car rides with a four-seater electric aircraft called the S4 that could slash the bothersome commute from San Francisco to Palo Alto from one hour to 10 minutes.
"Our vision is to transform mobility," said lead engineer Scott Berry. "It's exciting to be doing something that's green."
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During the May Drones, Data X Conference in Santa Cruz, Joby founder and Chief Executive Officer JoeBen Bevirt told audience members that these autonomous air taxis would mostly work for medium- to longer-range trips.
"You're not going to use this to go the grocery store," said Bevirt, a serial entrepreneur who started Joby Energy Inc. in 2008 to turn his focus to renewable energy, and founded Joby Aviation a year later.
Emergency response, transportation for organizations, recreation and tourism are other potential uses for the aircraft. A feature that differentiates Joby's product from others is the fact that these air taxis can be 100 times quieter than a helicopter and five times faster than a car. The plane's propeller blade design helps it manage noise better, Berry said.
The hope is to have the S4 ready in six years. A working prototype of the plane, which has a cruising speed of 200 miles per hour, should be in place in two years, though, if all goes well with the Federal Aviation Administration and other regulators.
Source: It's not a flying car, but it comes close
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