Brazilian air taxi Eve completes first test flight – Financial Times

An electric air taxi start-up spun off from Brazilian aerospace group Embraer has successfully flown a full-scale prototype of its vehicle for the first time, a key milestone in what marks the start of a year-long flight test phase. 

Eve Air Mobility, which is listed in New York with a market capitalisation of just under $1.7bn, is aiming for its vehicle to enter commercial operation at the end of 2027. 

The remotely piloted test flight at an Embraer facility in São Paulo state on Friday morning comprised a short hover up to 30 feet lasting about a minute, to demonstrate the technology’s viability. 

“It’s the first of a series [and] there will be a couple of hundred flights over the next 12 months,” said Johann Bordais, chief executive of Eve, which is still majority owned by Embraer.

Eve is among several start-ups and aerospace incumbents, including Joby Aviation and UK-based Vertical Aerospace, hoping to make the vision of emission-free “urban air mobility” a reality through the launch of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. 

The fast-growing market has attracted $16.5bn in investments since 2018, according to a recent report by McKinsey, although early promises of a speedy revolution in air travel have been slow to deliver.

Several companies have been forced to tap investors for more funding and push back certification milestones as the challenges of developing these aircraft have become clearer.

According to McKinsey, the battery capacity technology of eVTOLs also “limits their payloads to about four passengers and they can only carry those passengers for relatively short distances”. 

“In the near term, eVTOLs are unlikely to challenge regional aviation [and] are more likely to disrupt conventional helicopter and high-end road mobility services,” it said.

Eve’s air taxi takes off and lands vertically and is designed as a four-seater electric aircraft with a range of 60 miles. The “lift-plus-cruise” configuration has eight dedicated propellers for vertical flight and fixed wings to fly on cruise. 

Bordais said the company believed this configuration would help to make certification “simpler” because it had “two distinct technologies that are known”.

He said this design would help ensure the aircraft was available to fly when required by airline customers. Unlike helicopters, which Bordais described as “complex” machines, Embraer was designing the air taxi to fly “as an airliner, with high availability”.

Additional prototypes will be built in 2026 for a further series of test flights as part of a certification process with regulators. 

Air taxis face other hurdles, such as building the necessary infrastructure, winning public acceptance and certification.

China’s EHang earlier this year received the necessary approvals from the country’s aviation regulator to start pilotless flights for its autonomous air taxi but these are limited to sightseeing and tourism. Western companies are now racing to be among the first to secure certification from their regulators. 

While not seen as a frontrunner for certification, investors believe Eve benefits from the backing of Embraer, notably in terms of scaling production.

Eve has also partnered with a number of aerospace and defence companies, including Britain’s BAE Systems — which is providing the battery systems — while Thales and Honeywell are supplying sensors. Beta Technologies will supply the electric pusher motors.

Earlier this year Eve signed a $250mn binding contract for up to 50 vehicles with Revo, an air shuttle service in São Paulo that offers helicopter trips to the wealthy that start at R$2,750 ($500).

The air taxi maker raised $230mn of equity in August to fund development up to certification, followed by a $40mn loan this month from Brazilian development bank BNDES, which is also a shareholder.  

Eve shares have fallen 9 per cent in 2025 after the company delayed its first flight.

“We are here for the long run . . . we’re here to really transform everybody’s life eventually to make urban air mobility a reality,” said Bordais.