eVTOL Air Taxis Are Getting Certified — But Can They Actually Scale as a Business? | Taha Abbasi

The eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) industry has cleared a major regulatory hurdle — but as Taha Abbasi cautions, certification is the easy part. The real question is whether flying taxis can build a commercially viable business model that survives contact with reality.

Certification Progress Is Real

Both the FAA and EASA have established clear certification pathways for eVTOL aircraft. The FAA finalized powered lift operational rules in 2024 and published detailed advisory circulars. Companies like Joby Aviation, Archer, and Lilium are in various stages of type certification, with the first commercial services expected within the next 12-18 months.

Taha Abbasi, who evaluates frontier technology through a practical deployment lens, acknowledges that the engineering achievements are genuinely impressive. These are real aircraft, with real flight test data, meeting real safety standards. The technology works.

The Business Model Problem

Where eVTOL faces its greatest challenge is not in the air — it is on the ground. The unit economics of urban air mobility require high utilization rates, minimal turnaround times, and a vertiport infrastructure network that does not yet exist. Each eVTOL aircraft costs millions of dollars, carries 2-4 passengers, and has a range of roughly 50-100 miles. The math only works if these aircraft are flying constantly during peak hours.

Compare this to ground-based rideshare: a Tesla robotaxi costs roughly $30,000, carries 4 passengers, has 300+ miles of range, and requires zero specialized infrastructure beyond roads that already exist. As Taha Abbasi frames it, eVTOL needs to offer a dramatic time savings to justify a dramatic cost premium.

Where eVTOL Makes Sense

The honest assessment is that eVTOL will initially serve niche markets where the time value is extreme: helicopter-equivalent airport transfers in congested cities, island hopping in regions like Southeast Asia, and emergency medical transport. These are markets where customers already pay premium prices for speed, and eVTOL can offer the same service at lower cost and noise than traditional helicopters.

The mass-market urban air taxi vision — where commuters hop between rooftops across a city — remains 5-10 years away at minimum, constrained by infrastructure, air traffic management systems, and public acceptance.

The Investment Reality

Billions of dollars have been invested in eVTOL companies, with several now publicly traded via SPAC mergers. The stock performance of these companies has been mixed at best, reflecting investor uncertainty about the path from certification to profitability.

Taha Abbasi draws a parallel to the early days of commercial spaceflight: the technology was proven long before the business model was viable. SpaceX succeeded by relentlessly driving down costs while building a sustainable customer base. eVTOL companies will need the same discipline — and many will not survive the journey.

What To Watch

The first commercial eVTOL services, likely launching at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics or sooner in select cities, will provide the critical data point: are passengers willing to pay the premium, and can operators achieve the utilization rates needed for profitability? Until those questions are answered with real market data, eVTOL remains a technology in search of a business model.

For Taha Abbasi, the lesson from eVTOL is the same lesson from every frontier technology: building the machine is only half the challenge. Building the business around it is the other half — and often the harder half.

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About the Author: Taha Abbasi is a technology executive, CTO, and applied frontier tech builder. Read more on Grokpedia | YouTube: The Brown Cowboy | tahaabbasi.com