Another year has come and gone and for the eVTOL community the prize of service entry and commercial success is one that appears to be as remote today as it was four or five years ago. Gideon Ewers takes another look at the state of play for the sector and tries to find some crumbs of hope.
Can we get serious now? Over the last several years we have published a sort of runners and riders “top 10 most likely” examination of the eVTOL market. During that time, two of the big-name players have gone, although one – Volocopter – seems to be in some sort of suspended animation since it was acquired by Wanfeng and rolled into Diamond Aircraft.
Airbus has suspended development of its CityAirbus NextGen programme, and it seems Textron has likewise suspended its Nexus project in all but name. It also appears that Hyundai has decided to pause development, despite completing the first tethered flight of its technology demonstrator in the spring.
In fact, our monitoring struggles to come up with a list of 10 to consider. It may be pointed out, and reasonably so, that we haven’t included developers from China in this examination.
After all, EHang, with its EH216-S, was the first to gain a type certification for an eVTOL. But the reality is that, like other aircraft developed in the country, CAAC certification means little on the international stage.
In any case, we have decided to dispense with our ranking system and instead review what has happened to our shopping basket of eVTOL developers over the past 12 months.
While the interest in the markets seems to be on the wane, with shares in the majority of the publicly traded companies down by between 10% and 35% compared with this time last year, Joby and Horizon have bucked that trend with significant gains year on year.
Some developers have managed to raise eye-watering sums of money from investors and, then in the case of certain players spent it with all the abandon of a sailor on a run ashore after a long cruise.
Critically, though, while some progress has been made – and we’ll come to that later – it falls short of the stellar progress promised by the IPO prospectuses and the seemingly endless breathlessly worded press releases produced with grinding regularity ever since.
Archer is yet to fly a fully capable prototype. Image: Archer Aviation
Indeed, during the course of the year, one firm of analysts produced a comparison of flight hours per press release which made for some interesting and amusing reading.
Also having an impact for the US-based players is the initiative from the US Department of Transportation that was published in December.
While the document speaks of advanced air mobility (AAM), there is much in the meat of the plan’s 34 pages that discusses the long overdue air traffic system rather than eVTOL-specific questions.
Furthermore, the plan is divided into a series of phases, with even the shortest having a completion of deadline of 2028-2032, while others look to the middle of the next decade and some stretch into the end of the 2030s or even 2040.
Also noticeable is how much of the plan’s initiatives will require either legislation or funding to implement, which inevitably will mean delays in completion. And for the new entrants, time is not on their side.
The question is, will 2026 be the year that the four horsemen of the eVTOL apocalypse – Daniel Bernoulli, Isaac Newton, Alessandro Volta and critically Adam Smith – exact their toll on the sector?
I say Adam Smith because while it is terribly hard to fight physics, the rules of cash are equally demanding.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines financial solvency as the possession of assets in excess of liabilities, meaning the ability to pay all one’s debts or liabilities.
By that definition, based on the data contained in the Q3 2025 results, most of the players in the space are, as things stand, insolvent – with liabilities outstripping assets by tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars.
Clearly, with any start-up business, there is a period where this is going to be the case, and investors with considerable skin in the game will be reluctant to pull the plug on an asset.
In aviation, that is not without precedent, of course. Much of the airline industry is financially moribund, though operating profits are trumpeted when they happen.
In any case, for the publicly traded, we include a “lights out” date – an estimate of when the company will exhaust its reserves, assuming no new investment and spend continuing at the current rate (based on Q3 2025 results data).
Archer
Technical development
Archer has finished the year without a prototype that can fly all aspects of the aircraft’s flight envelope – that is, vertical take-off, transition to wing-borne flight, and deceleration to hover and vertical landing.
While the company has carried out a number of flights aimed at increasing the type’s speed and altitude envelope, these have all been CTOL sorties.
During the year, the company carried out a number of flights in the UAE but has not supplied any detail of the flights or the test points examined.
Business and ancillary
For all its lack of progress with the aircraft, 2025 was certainly a year for signing deals. Most notably, Archer signed up as a sponsor of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, claiming that it will provide air transport services for athletes and VIPs in the Los Angeles area. It seems they have learnt little from Volocopter’s failed promises to do the same thing during the 2024 games in Paris.
Beta may pivot to regional with a 19-seat CTOL. Image: Beta
The other standout deal was the agreement to become the master leaseholder (on a 30-year lease) of Hawthorne Airport in Los Angeles, which Archer says will be used as the operational hub of its Los Angeles network. Also of note was the company’s acquisition of a portfolio of patents from the creditors of the now defunct Lilium.
Archer is also fighting another industrial espionage lawsuit – this time from Joby, which alleges that a former senior employee now with Archer took with them confidential information that Archer has profited from.
Share price vs January 2025 (8 Jan): 19.66% down
Estimated lights out: 28 months
Beta Technologies
Technical development
Undoubtedly, Beta are the leaders in product development in the sector, with over 100,000 nautical miles flown with the CTOL variant of the Alia aircraft.
The company was also the first to complete a full mission envelope demonstration with the VTOL version of the aircraft – albeit since then development has focused on the CTOL in line with the company’s declared intention to certify the CTOL before moving on to the VTOL.
On the technical side, the thing that caught our eye was the inclusion of a proposal for a 19-seat CTOL hybrid aircraft aimed at regional transport, prompting the question of whether this an indication that the company is moving away from the VTOL space.
Business and ancillary
Beta’s financial position had been a closed book until the IPO prospectus was published. Besides the pivot to a larger aircraft as mentioned and a move to hybrid power in partnership with GE announced in September, perhaps the element that raised most eyebrows was how much of the company’s projected revenues are expected to be derived from replacement battery sales. I suspect this is something that would make many a potential customer blanch.
Share price vs IPO (8 Jan): 9.75% down
Estimated lights out: 30.5 months
Eve
Technical development
Of the big-name players, Eve is probably the one with most miles to travel – though it reached the first of many stones on that highway with the first uncrewed hover test of a full-size prototype at the end of the year, with a sortie lasting around one minute at a maximum altitude of 30 feet.
The company is planning an extensive flight test programme in the coming year and has already begun the construction of six conforming prototypes for a flight test programme that it says should yield type certification from Brazil’s ANAC in 2027.
Which appears on the face of it to be an unrealistic timetable, but perhaps one that is couched more in terms designed to appease markets and market analysts than it is grounded in reality.
Business and ancillary
Eve is interesting, since along with Wisk it is the only current runner with a link to a major airframer. While nothing like the scale of the behemoth that is Boeing, it is never wise to discount Eve’s parent Embraer, which has a lot of leverage with the Brazilian government in terms of financial support – as evidenced by the various lines of credit available from national institutions like the Brazilian National Development Bank.
Eve is backed by the Brazilian airframer Embraer. Image: Eve
Probably on the back of that support, Eve has been able to raise a further USD 15 million from the US EXIM Bank – plus a USD 150 million five-year loan from a consortium of banks including Itaú Unibanco, Banco do Brasil, Citibank, and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.
Share Price vs January 2025 (8 Jan): 18.80% down
Estimated lights out: 19.8 months
Horizon Aircraft
Horizon Aircraft adopted the hybrid approach from the outset. Image: Horizon
Technical development
I have to admit that I like the way Canada’s Horizon Aircraft does business. It has a focus that is long on engineering and design and short on bright lights, smoke and mirrors.
While many of its competitors have seen the light that batteries won’t cut the performance mustard within the last 18 months or so, and pivoted to hybrid power solutions as a result, Horizon has said from the word go that its Cavorite X7 will be a hybrid, with the company noting that batteries alone would not meet the needs of range or turnaround time to be an effective tool.
Horizon has also rejected the tilt prop solution, preferring ducted fans in wing, which it says is aerodynamically a far cleaner solution – an argument that is very difficult to gainsay.
So far, the company has only completed uncrewed flights in a scale demonstrator, but the results of those flights look promising for the full-size prototype currently under construction.
On the back of that testing, Horizon has recently made a number of changes, including a clean-up of the airframe, replacement of the four small canard lift fans – with two being the same dimensions as the main wing fans – and some passenger comfort improvements to the cabin.
Business and ancillary
If we have any concerns about Horizon it is in the depth of its pockets compared with those of some of its rivals. Frankly, one of the things that surprises us is that it does not yet appear to have caught the eye of larger operations.
Interestingly, in a briefing in January to financial and trade journalists, Brandon Robinson revealed that the company is in discussion with a number of firms in the Canadian aerospace sector to explore partnerships for further development and production. He named a number of names, including Bombardier, as possible partners.
With headquarters in California, Joby has been carrying out flight testing in both the US and the United Arab Emirates. Image: Joby
While he would not be drawn on the detail that these might take, he did say announcements could be forthcoming by mid-year. What is true is that of the listed companies Horizon has had comfortably the best share performance. An investment in its shares this time last year would have doubled your money.
Share price vs January 2025 (8 Jan): 108.82% up
Estimated lights out: 19.8 months
Joby
Technical development
Joby, like Archer, is one of the companies that likes to issue a lot of press releases detailing its stellar progress. Unlike Archer, however, it has made a good deal more technical progress, with a number of prototypes flying and carrying out full transition flights on a number of sorties.
But Joby is less forthcoming when it comes to the detail of the flight testing. They’ve been carrying out test flights both in the US and in the UAE. Although we cannot help but think that the latter testing was rather more about garnering publicity rather than obtaining a lot of data they could not have gathered in flight testing in the US.
Joby too has revealed a pivot toward hybrid power in a quest for range and has also been testing unmanned aircraft for logistics use. In November, the company announced that it had begun power-on testing of the first of the conforming prototypes for certification.
It does raise the question, though, of what will the eventual payload of production aircraft be. Certainly when you get up close in terms of cabin space, the S4 has a feel that is more Cessna 172 than Citation. You have to wonder if the production aircraft will be more muscular.
Business and ancillary
Of all the front-runners in the eVTOL space, Joby has undoubtedly been among the most voracious consumers of cash – spending around USD 90 million a month in the first nine months of 2025 – and consequently has been back to investors like Toyota as well as the markets for a number of cash raises totalling around USD 750 million by the end of 2025.
Toyota has committed to a further USD 250 million investment, but this comes with several undisclosed strings, and it appears that the targets set by Toyota for the second tranche are yet to be fulfilled.
Just as this edition was going to press, Joby announced yet another visit to the markets with its begging bowl in hand – this time looking to raise up to a further USD 1.2 billion (if all the options on stock and convertible debt are taken up).
Even so, at the present rate of spend, its reserves are only good for another two years at most.
Share price vs January 2025 (30 Jan): 35.36% up
Estimated lights out: 21.4 months
Vertical Aerospace
Technical development
Vertical Aerospace has undoubtedly been making steady progress with the development of the VX4 prototypes, which have been working systematically through a flight test and development programme.
The company had expected to complete the VX4 phase 4 of the envelope development – which included vertical take-off, transitions and return for vertical landing – by the end of last year, but that progress has been stymied by the vagaries of the British weather.
Vertical Aerospace recently unveiled its production model, Valo, in London and New York. Image: RHI
As with Horizon, here at RotorHub International we have liked the way the company has gone about developing its aircraft, with the emphasis on technical work rather than high profile announcements of little substance.
That said, at the beginning of December the company unveiled a mock-up of the aircraft it will look to certify, known as the Valo. While the aircraft is touted as having a passenger capacity of up to seven plus generous hold space, the executive four-seat layout is a far more likely prospect than the more utilitarian six seats in the back.
Valo is undeniably a good-looking aircraft, with more than a whiff of the lines of the de Havilland Dragon Rapide about the fuselage, while the gull wing with anhedral in the outer third is also an appealing aesthetic.
Interestingly, the company has moved from a tricycle landing gear to a conventional (taildragger), with quite closely faired wheels.
Again, this is pleasing to the eye in terms of aerodynamic cleanliness, but I wonder what handling challenges may await when operating in STOL versus VTOL mode. To meet range requirements, Valo will ultimately move to a hybrid power system currently under development, but more than likely when the first example takes to the air at some point next year it will retain batteries as the primary power source.
Business and ancillary
In contrast to other developers in the space who seem to be focused on divesting their holdings, Vertical Aerospace recently announced that 16 members of its board of directors and senior leadership team had completed open market purchases of the company’s ordinary shares over a two-week open trading window period in November.
These acquisitions follow a series of open market share purchases by Vertical’s Chairman Dómhnal Slattery and two other board members in May 2025.
As result of this trading, Vertical’s directors and leadership have increased their holdings of ordinary shares in the company by approximately 50%.
Furthermore, the company’s majority shareholder, Mudrick Capital Management LP, has increased its position by 350,000 shares via open market purchases since November 2024.
Cumulatively, this trading has resulted in company founder Stephen Fitzpatrick’s directly held shares now representing less than 0.4% of the company’s ordinary shares, down from approximately 15% at the beginning of the year.
Wisk’s Generation 6 aircraft has completed its first flight, starting with a vertical take-off followed by a sustained hover. Image: Wisk
That being said, of all the contenders Vertical Aerospace’s cash position is the most precarious – with outgoings for the year expected to be in the order of USD 235 million, while cash reserves at the end of Q3 2025 were USD 117 million. At the time of writing, the company has announced a late-January EGM to consider additional financing through a further share issue.
Share price vs January 2025 (8 Jan): 34.49% down
Estimated lights out: 5.4 months
Wisk
Technical development
At the end of 2025, having been fairly quiet for much of the year, Boeing subsidiary Wisk revealed that it had completed the first flight of its Generation 6 aircraft – with the aircraft performing a vertical take-off sustained hover and a sequence of manoeuvres before returning for a vertical landing.
Wisk says the Generation 6 unpiloted eVTOL will be the model it will use for type certification once the flight test and validation programme is complete. For now, the company is progressing on the test programme with a focus on take offs, landings, and low-speed stability.
In addition, Wisk is continuing to develop its autonomy technologies, with work including detect-and-avoid navigation systems.
Business and ancillary
As a wholly owned subsidiary of Boeing, Wisk’s accounts are not reported separately, nor does it have publicly shared cash/expenditure data. We can assume, though, that like CityAirbus NextGen, Supernal and Nexus, the programme will continue until the parent company determines it to be untenable and it either is paused, shelved or reaches fruition.
Share price: N/A
Estimated lights out: No data
The outlook for 2026 and beyond
Inevitably, amid the eVTOL hoopla, there is the idea that whichever programme gets to the finish line first will collect all the chocolates.
That’s a flawed concept, however, not least because product history has demonstrated it repeatedly in aerospace and elsewhere. (Who wants a Prius when you can buy an electric anything these days?)
At the Valo unveiling, a comparison with the dawn of the jet age was invoked at least once during the evening’s presentations.
This reminded me that in that in the race in question the “winner” ended up the loser. Comet was a commercial flop, and while the 707 was the undoubted winner, a lot of that success was the result of a fuselage redesign to match the one that crossed the line third, the DC-8 (which, history records, also did better than the Comet).
In fact, for eVTOLs the much-vaunted race to certification is not the battle, it is at best a minor skirmish.
The actual battle will be joined when this aircraft and its rivals in the space must compete not only with each other but also demonstrate that they can mix it with conventional vertical lift offerings.
While physics is hard, commerce is even less forgiving.
When push comes to shove and you take in the impact of the four horsemen of electric aviation – Newton, Bernoulli, Volta and Smith – our guess is that in all probability the first successful eVTOL will look very like Robinson’s eR66. Image: Robinson
Business and ancillary
As a wholly owned subsidiary of Boeing, Wisk’s accounts are not reported separately, nor does it have publicly shared cash/expenditure data. We can assume, though, that like CityAirbus NextGen, Supernal and Nexus, the programme will continue until the parent company determines it to be untenable and it either is paused, shelved or reaches fruition.
Share price: N/A
Estimated lights out: No data
This article “When the wind blows” was published in the Volume 20 Issue 1 of RotorHub International. To read more articles like this, apply for your complimentary subscription today.
