Flying Taxi Company Wins $20M Government Deal for Chargers

Air taxi developer Beta Technologies in Burlington, Vermont, has won a $20 million federal contract to install electric aerial vehicle (EAV) chargers in rural areas along the East and Gulf 

coasts.

The contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) would allow Beta to build charging stations to enable an emergency preparedness platform for the federal department.

The Beta chargers would allow the federal department to establish a cost-effective network to deliver equipment, pharmaceuticals and patients, even in relatively remote areas.

“Rural areas experience high morbidity and mortality rates due to lack of access to local health care,” stated the Beta deal announcement. “Air ambulances serve more than half a million patients every year, and continue to play a more and more important role in the health care landscape as rural hospitals continue to close in the U.S.”

Beta’s chargers are designed to support its own EAVs and others, along with ground electric vehicles.

The relatively lower operational costs and increased utility are expected to allow eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) vehicles to offer better transport opportunities than current medical transportation methods.

Related:Flying Taxi Company Expands at Michigan Airports

“The past few years have highlighted just how critical reliable and sustainable medical transport and emergency preparedness are,” said Kyle Clark, Beta founder and CEO. “HHS and ASPR are on the front lines of these issues and we’re excited to be working with them on meaningful, capital-efficient solutions that benefit the public. We believe this work has the potential to increase access to healthcare and essential services for all types of geographies, including the historically harder-to-reach ones.”

Beta recently received a $2.6 million grant from the state of Michigan to help scale advanced air mobility (AAM), which came via Michigan’s AAM Activation Fund to create a centralized pipeline of projects to drive AAM growth in the state. 

Beta intends to use the grant to install multimodal chargers at Cherry Capital Airport (TVC), Capital Region International Airport (LAN), West Michigan Regional Airport (BIV) and Willow Run Airport (YIP) as a start of a charging network to support electric aerial vehicles (EAV).

Beta has 20 charging sites on the east and gulf coasts, with 50 more sites in development, according to the company.

Late last year, Beta was granted $20 million from the state of New York to expand its operations at Plattsburgh International Airport.

Related:Flying Taxi Company Expanding; $20M Grant from New York

That grant came through the Clinton County from Empire State Development’s Regional Economic and Community Assistance Program.

The new facility is intended to become the manufacturing and final assembly hub for Beta’s EAV and to create a permanent flight test and EAV delivery center, for final flight testing, vehicle painting and customer delivery.

Beta has orders for its flying vehicles from UPS, United Therapeutics, Bristow, LCI, Blade and Helijet, and has contracts with the U.S. Air Force and Army.

New York state has been investing in building clean transportation infrastructure in the state, including investing more than $2.7 billion for clean transportation initiatives.

Beta also was approved for a $169 million loan to finance its net-zero final assembly production facility from the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM).

The 188,500 square foot manufacturing facility at the Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport, where Beta plans to build its eVTOL and CTOL (conventional takeoff and landing) aircraft.

Beta’s Alia vertical and conventional takeoff vehicles are targeted for military and commercial use, including for medical, defense and passenger industries. 

Beta has been working on developing its electric with numerous aerospace suppliers including Albany Engineered Composites, Advanced Integration Technology, Garmin, Sensata Technologies, Volz Servis and Solvay.

The new production facility, on a 40-acre site at the airport, could ultimately produce 300 EAVs a year, according to the company.

The company also has locations in Plattsburgh, New York, Washington, D.C., Montreal, Canada, Raleigh, North Carolina and Springfield, Ohio.

Beta has partnered with AFWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Air Force that leverages the Air Force Research Laboratory for this program.

Beta installed aircraft electric charging stations at Eglin Air Force Base to service the electric flying vehicle there. Beta’s eCTOL aircraft is planned for service in 2025 with its vertical version in service the following year.

Many EAVs are eVTOLs, which do not require traditional runways, since they take off and land straight up and down.

Vertiport facilities to manage the takeoff, landing, charging and maintenance of such vehicles are being established by companies such as Florida-based Aeroauto Global, which is also developing retail showrooms for flying vehicle sales.