Imagine booking a ride on your phone for a small aircraft. After taking the elevator up to a building-top vertipad, you climb into the passenger seat of an electric vehicle that looks like a massive drone. 

The rotors start up, and you lift straight up into the sky. Instead of hitting traffic, you fly over the city to the airport and reach bag check in less than 20 minutes. 

This is a future that a group of aerospace companies is looking to bring about in the next few years. It’s a new class of aircraft called an electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle. 

For now, the most popular use for these aircraft is to taxi people short and medium distances. Some eVTOL companies are already working with airlines to launch taxi services.  

Areas like firefighting, hospital transport, defense, tourism and farming may also benefit from eVTOL technology. But these aircraft haven’t been cleared for widespread use quite yet.

But when will these things actually take to the sky, and will you actually be able to summon them like a rideshare vehicle? We talked to some of the companies and people involved in this growing industry to find out.

What’s an eVTOL aircraft?

Electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles come in a variety of designs. Many of the models used for electric air taxis look like a cross between an airplane and a helicopter. They use multiple rotors or fans that are distributed across the wings or arms that sprout from the main fuselage. 

Like a helicopter, eVTOL aircraft can take off and land vertically without a runway. But unlike a helicopter, these aircraft have multiple rotors instead of just one, which may make them safer to fly. 

While the idea for eVTOL technology has been around for a few decades, recent advances in battery storage and electric propulsion have made these aircraft viable for commercial and public use. 

Marilyn Smith, director of the Vertical Lift Research Center of Excellence at Georgia Tech’s Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, tells CNET that if eVTOL aircraft catch on, they could significantly improve ground transportation by moving some of the traffic into the sky.

“Traffic congestion is reaching unreasonable proportions in many major cities, and the accompanying pollution from carbon fuels is directly impacting quality of life,” Smith said. “We need to rethink transportation, especially in the US, where we focus primarily on personal transportation [like] cars.”

When can I book a ride on an electric air taxi?

Before electric air taxis can pick up passengers, the aircraft need approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. In 2024, the FAA designated air taxis under a new class of aircraft called “powered lift.” 

In 2025, the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program was initiated via executive order. The eIPP designates a few places in a few cities where these companies can operate while finishing up FAA certification. 

That pilot program began earlier in 2026. Essentially, it gives a few companies tightly controlled paths for testing air taxis.

Three companies — Archer, Beta Technologies and Joby — are all nearing the final FAA safety approval that’s needed for commercial service. While there’s no set timeline for when electric air taxis will be available for bookings, “it’s closer than most people think,” the Archer spokesperson said. 

“NASA, DOT and academia, as well as some companies, are working to understand and resolve outstanding questions for operations that have a direct role on safety,” Smith said.

Smith also notes that some companies have been indicating 2027-2028 for commercial operations, “but given regulations and infrastructure, those dates may be optimistic, unless it is for a very limited operation in a very few cities,” Smith said. “Perhaps more realistic dates are 2029-2030 to expand beyond a very few special test operations.”

How will renting an electric air taxi work?

People who live in or visit large cities like New York and Los Angeles will likely be the first to have an opportunity to book a ride on an electric air taxi. Like many untested products and services, such as Waymo in San Francisco, these new aircraft will first begin operating in metropolitan areas. Then, if all goes well, electric air taxi services will expand into other markets.

Smartphone apps will be the main way to book an air taxi, similar to how you book an Uber or Lyft on their respective apps. You’ll likely be able to see rates, times and locations. But it might be a while before an air taxi picks you up at the house. If you want to rent one, you’ll probably need to travel to a helipad-like platform on top of a building or parking garage to catch a ride to the airport.

“Electric air taxis will give cities the ability to move people through the air quickly, quietly, and sustainably for the first time,” an Archer spokesperson said. “A 60- to 90-minute drive from JFK to downtown Manhattan becomes a 10-minute flight. That changes where people can realistically live, work and travel.”

While air taxis could become important for transportation, Smith says EV batteries still need improvement. 

“It’s important to recognize that electric vehicles are not the holy grail that will get rid of very efficient carbon-based transportation,” Smith said. “There is still significant research needed to make batteries more efficient, both in power or energy output, as well as weight.”

How much will it cost to book a ride in an electric air taxi?

There’s no rate for bookings yet, as no company has been approved by the FAA as of June 2026. However, the companies suggest the cost to book an electric air taxi for a trip to the airport will probably be somewhere between $3 and $6 per mile, depending on the company, location, trip length, time of day and the like.

The electric air taxi companies I spoke with are keen on keeping their services as affordable as possible. From what they tell me, it sounds like the electric air taxi industry is positioning itself to be a widely used service.

Archer’s spokesperson calls these aircraft “a genuine solution to the transportation problems facing America’s most congested cities.”

Can an electric air taxi fly itself?

Flying over congested city streets to get to your destination faster certainly brings to mind celebrities and rich people renting helicopters to beat traffic. If air taxis work out, this could be a more affordable version of a service that’s been largely restricted to the wealthy.

The electric air taxis that Archer, Beta and Joby are trying to get FAA approval for all require a certified pilot with a commercial or airline transport license to fly. A private pilot’s license will do if you just want to fly an eVTOL for personal use.

However, self-driving vehicles on land, air and sea are getting better every year. If eVTOL vehicles become widely used, they will fly themselves someday. There’s already a Chinese company called EHang that takes people sightseeing on eVTOLs without a pilot. 

In the US, a company called Wisk Aero, which is owned by Boeing, has been developing an eVTOL that’s entirely autonomous. Because there’s no pilot, the Wisk Aero eVTOL will take longer for the FAA to approve. But the company is actively working on getting this model to market.

Expect to see electric air taxis flying in large US cities by the end of the 2020s. Whether this new technology will catch on with Americans and become an important new form of transportation will likely play out over the next decade.

But electric air taxis will certainly gain wider exposure in 2028 when the Summer Olympics land in Los Angeles, with Archer already signed on as the event’s official air taxi provider, where the company and its Midnight eVTOL vehicles will be integrated “in a variety of ways, such as transporting VIPs, fans and stakeholders, while electrifying vertiport take-off-and-landing hubs for key venues and providing support for emergency services and security,” according to an Olympics statement.

“The most exciting part is building at the leading edge of a new era in aerospace,” Beta’s spokesperson said. “One that brings decarbonized connectivity and access to communities across the country.”

Julian is a contributor and former staff writer at CNET.

See full bio