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By Bjorn Fehrm

July 27, 2023, © Leeham News: We look at the promises that the VTOL industry has made in their Investor prospects and what the reality is as they come closer to Certification and present their production-level prototypes. We also analyze whether these capabilities will be the final level.

Today we go through the trickiest part of any electric aircraft or eVTOL, the batteries. They are large, very heavy, and the most difficult part to certify on the aircraft, as the battery is dangerous if not designed, produced, and managed correctly.

Figure 1. The Joby Aviation S4 production prototype. Source: Joby Aviation.

Summary:

• The battery system of an eVTOL sets restrictions on the operational usefulness of the category.
• The everyday operational utility of VTOLs is far from the industries' claims.