A charging network for air taxis begins to take shape in U.S.

By Paul Brinkmann|July 19, 2024

BETA Technologies has the most stations; Joby Aviation says it has a different strategy

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of charging sessions conducted in a 30-day period. The correct number is 2,000. The reference has been corrected.

In the budding electric air taxi industry, no company has emerged to lead creation of a network of charging stations in the United States as forcefully as Tesla did in the auto world. Its North American Charging System standard has been adopted by most auto manufacturers. But among the two air taxi developers that have indicated they aim to provide an industry-wide charging solution, BETA Technologies has leapt ahead of Joby Aviation in terms of locations with stations, although Joby does not view itself as in a race.

BETA has installed its Charging Cubes at 20 airports in the northeast and southern U.S. where it expects to fly, including at its home base at Burlington International Airport in Vermont. The cubes are not just for aircraft. Some are positioned so that airport customers and employees can plug them into their electric cars or trucks for charging. Each cube stands 1.2 meters tall and has a retractable 15-meter cord to ensure it can reach an aircraft or automobile.

By contrast, Joby, based in Santa Clara, California, has a charging station at its flight facility in Marina, California, and one at Edwards Air Force Base, also in California, so NASA and the Air Force can test a prototype.

Joby, which last year said it would make the specifications for its “universal charging interface” available “to our industry” at no cost, retains big aspirations for its version. In an email response to my inquiry, the company suggested that timing will prove to be more important than the numbers of stations at this point.

“We have a lot of good partnerships on electrification, as previously announced, and will build the charge points at the right time starting with locations that enable operations in our immediate markets (such as LA and NY),” Joby said.

That was an apparent reference to electrification agreements announced in January with two fixed-base operators, Atlantic Aviation and Clay Lacy Aviation, which provide charter and general aviation services at a combined 130 airports around the U.S.

BETA has focused on reaching agreements with other air taxi developers who pledge to make their aircraft compatible with its stations. Archer Aviation of San Jose and Lilium of Munich both announced in January that their aircraft would charge on BETA’s protocol.

As significant as those agreements could prove to be, one independent expert says that setting up some stations now is wise, even if there are few air taxis to charge at the moment. The exceptions are two versions of the piloted, all-electric Alia aircraft that BETA has been flying without passengers under FAA special airworthiness certificates in pursuit of a type certificate for commercial operation.

“No one’s going to buy those aircraft if they don’t have a place to charge them,” says Brent Gruber, executive director of global automotive with J.D. Power, a consumer affairs analyst firm based in the Detroit area. “It seems like they’re being very proactive,” he said of BETA.

Right now, the company’s biggest potential aircraft customer is the United Parcel Service, which in 2021 announced it has agreed to buy 10 of BETA’s aircraft, with an option for 140 more.

Gruber notes that Tesla managed to corner a big part of the electric car market by building a network of charging stations. “One of the biggest barriers to EV [electric vehicle] consideration is availability of charging, as you would imagine. And so, alleviating that issue helped Tesla sell vehicles,” he says.

As for charging technology, one difference between the BETA and Joby versions centers on coolant. When an aircraft battery is charged, it must be cooled — in some designs so that it starts out cold in flight as part of the strategy for averting overheating. Joby’s stations have built-in coolant lines to circulate around the battery. BETA, by contrast, cools batteries via separate methods that it has not disclosed.

Regarding finances, BETA noted by email that it now “makes a profit on every customer charging session,” and said there were 2,000 such sessions in a recent 30-day period.

While the revenue and agreements with other developers are welcomed by the company, BETA’s head of charge product, Chip Palombini, tells me the biggest concern is having enough stations out there when it gets an FAA type certificate.

“We’re building this network because we need to ensure that our customers have access to a high-reliability charging network and have the chargers installed where they’re going to be operating electric aircraft,” Palombini says.