Meet the top startups of the booming flying car world, an industry predicted to be worth more than $1 trillion by 2040
- The urban air mobility market could be worth more than $1 trillion by 2040, Morgan Stanley predicts.
- Startups making "flying cars" are competing to see who can get their aircraft certified first.
The urban air mobility market, while still very new, has made significant strides in recent years. In 2021, five companies making electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles, or eVTOLs, including Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation, went public via special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, deals, with a combined market cap of $10.7 billion, according to McKinsey & Company. Morgan Stanley Equity Research has estimated that the urban air mobility industry could be worth $1.5 trillion by 2040.
Right now, companies that are developing eVTOLs — what some refer to as "flying cars," though they more closely resemble helicopters — are racing to get their aircraft certified for commercial use. Among the hundreds of startups looking to break into the urban air mobility market, there are a wide range of business strategies and aircraft designs. While it's still unclear which business models and aircraft designs will work best, experts predict a dominant design will become evident in the next few years, and the startups that most closely match that design will be the ones to survive and lead the market.
Several eVTOL makers have plans to start operating aerial ridesharing services within the next two years. Experts predict that we'll see a big wave of consolidation in the next couple years as the industry sees which companies are able to secure regulatory approvals and which see their funding run dry. Catch up on what's happening in the eVTOL industry with these stories.
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Working in urban air mobility
- What kind of talent the eVTOL industry is looking to hire
- How to get a job at Joby Aviation, the best-funded eVTOL maker with a $3 billion market cap