Archer to launch urban air mobility network in Miami, with Uber Elevate co-founders joining its advisory board

Archer has con­firmed that Mia­mi will be the next city in the USA where it intends to launch its urban air mobil­i­ty net­work by 2024. The com­pa­ny has also announced that two of Uber Ele­vate co-founders — Nikhil Goel and Mark Moore — have joined its advi­so­ry board.

This news fol­lows on from last mon­th’s announce­ment by the eVTOL air­craft devel­op­er, which said it plans to set up its first urban air mobil­i­ty net­work in Los Ange­les in the same year.

Adam Gold­stein, co-Founder and co-CEO of Archer, said: “Cities across Amer­i­ca are look­ing for solu­tions to traf­fic and mobil­i­ty chal­lenges. Our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Mia­mi will bring quick, safe, afford­able every­day flight to South­ern Flori­da.

“Launch­ing an Urban Air Mobil­i­ty net­work in Flori­da is par­tic­u­lar­ly excit­ing for Brett and I per­son­al­ly as grad­u­ates of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Flori­da. We named Archer after our first eVTOL R&D lab, based just off Archer Road in Gainesville, FL, so mak­ing an impact on Florida’s trans­porta­tion issues will be a great full cir­cle moment for us.”

Brett Adcock, co-Founder and co-CEO of Archer, added: “By giv­ing pas­sen­gers greater flex­i­bil­i­ty to explore the world around them, we’re bring­ing adven­ture to their fin­ger­tips, whether they’re com­mut­ing to work, or vis­it­ing a near­by city or state park.

“Archer will devel­op a UAM net­work in Mia­mi to sup­port eVTOL air­craft, and cre­ate a ser­vice with a price equiv­a­lent to rideshare ser­vices on the mar­ket today. Fun­da­men­tal to our suc­cess, and indeed the suc­cess of the entire eVTOL indus­try, is the sup­port of pro­gres­sive lead­ers like May­or Suarez in sup­port­ing inno­v­a­tive new modes of trans­porta­tion.”

Archer will now work with the city of Mia­mi to address some of South Florida’s mobil­i­ty chal­lenges, offer­ing peo­ple a new option to trav­el in and around dense cities in a fast, safe, sus­tain­able, and cost-effec­tive man­ner.

Fran­cis Suarez, May­or of Mia­mi, said: “We know that infra­struc­ture and trans­porta­tion solu­tions in South­ern Flori­da must change over the next decade to curb car­bon emis­sions, decrease traf­fic, and cre­ate the mul­ti­modal trans­porta­tion net­works of the future.

“The City of Mia­mi is ded­i­cat­ed to col­lab­o­rat­ing with Archer to build one of America’s first UAM net­works and work towards over­com­ing the geo­graph­i­cal chal­lenges of our water-locked areas cur­rent­ly only acces­si­ble via con­gest­ed road­ways. We couldn’t be more excit­ed to be align­ing with such a lead­ing force in the eVTOL indus­try.”

Archer has enjoyed a strong start to 2021 and is now regard­ed as one of the key play­ers in the eVTOL space, in part due to its recent SPAC merg­er with Atlas Crest Invest­ment Corp to go pub­lic. The deal val­ued the com­pa­ny at approx­i­mate­ly $3.8 bil­lion, mak­ing it the third eVTOL air­craft uni­corn along­side Joby Avi­a­tion and Lil­i­um. Unit­ed Air­lines — one of the world’s biggest com­mer­cial air­lin­ers — has also placed an order for $1 bil­lion worth of eVTOL air­craft, with an option for an addi­tion­al $500 mil­lion of air­craft.

And in Goel and Moore, Archer has now brought sig­nif­i­cant indus­try exper­tise to the com­pa­ny as they work towards cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of its eVTOL air­craft, which can car­ry pas­sen­gers for 60 miles at speeds of 150mph. A full-scale ver­sion will be unveiled lat­er this year.

The pair — who have been recog­nised in the first eVTOL Insights Pow­er Book - co-authored Uber’s ‘Ele­vate’ white paper on aer­i­al rideshar­ing and spent four years advanc­ing the urban air mobil­i­ty space to pave the way for the future of trans­porta­tion.

Moore said: “Archer has one of the best designed air­craft that I’ve seen, both for aer­i­al ride-shar­ing and car­go appli­ca­tions. It’s com­pet­i­tive­ly posi­tioned for supe­ri­or man­u­fac­tura­bil­i­ty and rapid cer­ti­fi­ca­tion. Their engi­neer­ing team has devel­oped a com­pelling eVTOL that’s tight­ly aligned with the nec­es­sary require­ments for opti­mum net­work per­for­mance and eco­nom­ics.”

Com­ment­ing on their appoint­ment to the advi­so­ry board, Adcock added: “Archer is ded­i­cat­ed to reshap­ing urban air mobil­i­ty through­out the world and advanc­ing the ben­e­fits of sus­tain­able air trav­el. This is an under­tak­ing that will require a tremen­dous amount of effort, and Nikhil and Mark will bring an unpar­al­leled per­spec­tive as some of the first-movers in the indus­try.”