Thanks to new battery technology, flying taxis, or technically called electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicles might become an economical option. What’s surprising is that the hardest part of making eVTOLs isn’t the vehicle itself. It’s the energy situation that is limiting eVTOLs.

Any battery capable of lifting the vehicle is way too heavy and slow-charging to make a trip worth the effort. However, in the latest development, a team of Pennsylvania State University engineers has tested new batteries that can be charged in a short time and survive thousands of charge cycles, as per the new research. The new study published in the journal Joul, makes the idea of eVTOLs more realistic and achievable.

10 minutes charge enough for 50 miles

The energy-dense lithium-ion batteries can be a huge leap towards electric vehicle energy technology, states The Independent. Both could be charged for a 50-mile course within 10 minutes, making eVTOLs way more economical because it would enable vehicles to take more trips in a day.

 “I hope that the work we have done in this paper will give people a solid idea that we don’t need another 20 years to finally get these vehicles,” Chao-Yang Wang, lead study author told The Independent. “I believe we have demonstrated that the eVTOL is commercially viable,” he added.

As of now, the new batteries have only been put through tests in a lab setting. But believing that these batteries with fast-charging systems could actually push the eVTOL production is just an assumption at the moment.

Will flying taxis become reality?

However, it’s promising and could eliminate one of the biggest hurdles stopping flying car tech from becoming mainstream. But it still depends on the rest of the industry to start implementing the new batteries in their vehicles.

“I hope that the work we have done in this paper will give people a solid idea that we don’t need another 20 years to finally get these vehicles,” said Chao-Yang Wang.