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Beta Technologies and Toyota Motor North America among the latest companies to join GAMA as members

The Gen­er­al Avi­a­tion Man­u­fac­tur­ers Asso­ci­a­tion (GAMA) has wel­comed five new mem­bers, includ­ing eVTOL air­craft devel­op­er Beta Tech­nolo­gies and Toy­ota Motor North Amer­i­ca, which has part­nered with Joby Avi­a­tion on the pro­duc­tion of its own air­craft.

In a press release announc­ing the news, Beta has joined as an Asso­ciate Mem­ber, while Toy­ota Motor North Amer­i­ca is an Asso­ciate Mem­ber EPIC. The remain­ing com­pa­nies to join GAMA as mem­bers include Air­bus Cor­po­rate Jets, Hartzell Engine Tech­nolo­gies and Inco­ra.

The list of eVTOL air­craft devel­op­ers join­ing GAMA con­tin­ues to grow, with Joby, Kit­ty Hawk, Gen­e­sis Air Mobil­i­ty – a brand of Hyundai — Lil­i­um and Wisk all Asso­ciate Mem­bers Full. Sim­i­lar to Toy­ota Motor North Amer­i­ca, Alaka’i Tech­nolo­gies, Volo­copter, Aut­oFlightX, Overair, Piasec­ki Air­craft and XTI Air­craft are also Asso­ciate Mem­bers EPIC.

Found­ed in 2017 by Kyle Clark, who is recog­nised in eVTOL Insights’ first Pow­er Book, Beta Tech­nolo­gies is among one of the most advanced eVTOL air­craft devel­op­ers in the mar­ket.

Before reveal­ing its lat­est eVTOL, ALIA, the com­pa­ny con­duct­ed an inten­sive test­ing cam­paign with a small­er pro­to­type called AVA. It already has Unit­ed Ther­a­peu­tics as a launch cus­tomer, which will use the air­craft to trans­port human organs.

And as well as its air­craft, Beta Tech­nolo­gies has also devel­oped land­ing infra­struc­ture solu­tions. The abil­i­ty to pro­vide rapid recharge comes from a 250 kW AC/DC invert­er con­nect­ed direct­ly to the grid, while the inclu­sion of an option­al bat­tery ener­gy stor­age mod­ule reduces demand charges of util­i­ty-sup­plied pow­er — espe­cial­ly dur­ing peak use times, and enables air­craft to charge dur­ing pow­er out­ages

And in a sep­a­rate press release issued ear­li­er this week, GAMA has also announced that Joby Avi­a­tion founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt and Roei Gan­zars­ki, CEO of mag­niX and Exec­u­tive Chair­man of Evi­a­tion, have been appoint­ed to serve as co-chairs of the Elec­tric Propul­sion and Inno­va­tion Com­mit­tee (EPIC).

The com­mit­tee works to cre­ate an envi­ron­ment con­ducive to effi­cient design, pro­duc­tion, oper­a­tion and main­te­nance of hybrid and elec­tric propul­sion air­craft, includ­ing eVTOLs.

This will be Bevirt and Ganzarski’s first time serv­ing on the Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee. Bevirt has been a mem­ber of the GAMA Board of Direc­tors since 2018 and Gan­zars­ki has been a mem­ber since 2019.    

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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