Electric taxi plans of Overair remain on track

Santa Ana ‘Butterfly’ Maker Backed With $25M

Some years from now “let’s call an Overair” may become as common as calling for a car from Uber or Lyft.

At least that’s the hope of the flying taxi developer in Santa Ana.

Josh Aronoff, the Overair business development chief, says the company plans to strike out on its own with its Butterfly electric-powered aerial transporter.

In addition to manufacturing aircraft to sell to third-party operators, “we will plan on operating our own aircraft,” Aronoff told the Business Journal on April 29.

Overair’s Butterfly vehicles are expected to be significantly quieter than typical helicopters. They are electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL), making them ideal for urban areas.

Overair, a spinoff from Orange County’s renowned Karem Aircraft of Lake Forest, has already built up a staff of 55 since its founding in January 2020. It has also moved into a new 94,000square-foot headquarters facility in Santa Ana.

To date, the company’s focus has been on design and the long road toward Federal Aviation Administration certification, which the company aims to receive in 2025. Overair plans to open its service as early as that year.

LA Dinner

Aronoff said the customers could include anything from airlines to other ride operators, adding the company will also have aircraft “that we operate ourselves—our customers will be you and me, individuals commuting to work or going to dinner in LA.”

“We would expect to operate our own and hire the necessary employees to run that operation,” Aronoff said. “By owning and operating the aircraft ourselves, it’s recurring revenue.”

Aronoff added the goal is to make the air taxis reach a scale “that enables costs to be competitive with today’s auto ride sharing platforms.”

“Our plan is to work with Uber and Lyft and any other ride-share provider in addition to our own interface,” Aronoff said. “We expect to be integrated with Uber and Lyft and other ride-sharing providers.”

Karem announced in 2019 that Hanwha Systems of South Korea was backing the flying taxi project with $25 million in Series A funding.

Pioneer Karem

The plan is to make a passenger-friendly adaptation of Karem’s core military-focused technology, one which “will enable aerial ride-sharing customers to dramatically shorten their commutes and avoid traffic in densely populated urban markets.” Karem itself was founded by drone and aerial vehicle pioneer Abe Karem.

Overair, which opened its new facility at 3001 S. Susan St. in July, has been making progress despite the pandemic.

Other local companies have also been targeting some of the same space.

Irvine-based Aria Group has been moving into the air taxi development market with airframes and fiber composite components.

Dzyne Technologies of Irvine designs unmanned aircraft, including VTOL-type products.

About a mile from John Wayne Airport, Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey said last year that his company was “building an unannounced long-range VTOL aircraft with a very novel payload and mission.” Since then, most of the attention has been on the company’s development of drones for various uses, including military.