Community Chat

[Foxxee]

UPS plans to purchase electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.  Plans on using them in rural to mid-sized towns to expedite deliveries.  

With the capability to take off and land directly on UPS property, eVTOL aircraft are perfect for moving smaller loads that would otherwise fly to and from airports on small feeder aircraft or take even longer by ground.

UPS Flight Forward is scheduled to take delivery of its first ten BETA eVTOL aircraft beginning in 2024, with the option to purchase up to 150. The vehicle has a 1,400-pound cargo capacity, a range of 250 miles and zero operating emissions.

UPS has reserved BETA's recharging station for safe and rapid charging of the aircraft in under one hour to facilitate faster cargo loading and unloading.

The charging station also offers the aircraft’s batteries a second life. After the batteries’ first lifecycle in the aircraft is over, they can be fitted to the charging station to recharge the aircraft’s onboard batteries as well as UPS’s fleet of electric ground vehicles.

UPS also ordered 10,000 electric vehicles.  

UPS Flight Forward takes innovation and sustainability onward and upward

[Sooner]

COOL! 

[Porcelain]

That's pretty neat! Adding eVTOL Aircraft to my Amazon wishlist.

[Spurt]

This is probably a more realistic rendering of the plane, and they will probably just drop packages and hope it lands on the customer's front porch.....😄😄😄

[shoesnbags]

Wow!  Looks very futuristic.

[gardenman]

I'd be very surprised if any of those ever took to the air on a regular basis. Hiring trained pilots is a lot more expensive than hiring truck drivers. Regulations for aircraft are much stricter than for delivery vehicles. If a truck breaks down it doesn't fall from the sky.

It's clever marketing and set far enough in the future that they can assume everyone will have forgotten about it by 2024. They'll gain favorable press for the next year or so then just quietly let it slip from the public's eye.

There are lots of air taxis and similar devices in mock-up stages that are all more or less based on drone technology with multiple upward-facing propellers. There are issues with scaling up that technology to something full-sized. That's why no one's done it successfully so far. VTOL aircraft are not nearly as easy to make in the real world. (Other than helicopters.) The closest humans have come are the Harrier jump jets, the Boeing Osprey, and the new F-35 fighter jets.

It's not like it's a new idea. There have been mockups and prototypes of this type of aircraft for decades. It's just translating those mockups and designs to the real world where things fall apart. Maybe this time they'll overcome the hurdles, but I wouldn't hold my breath. It's clever marketing more than anything at this stage.