On February 2, the electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft of American venture company Joby Aviation will be provided by Toyota.

Toyota Motor (TOYOTA) said it will cooperate with Joby Aviation, an American venture company dedicated to the development of a “flying car”, to invest 394 million US dollars (about 2.7 billion yuan). Toyota will use its knowledge in vehicle production and technology development to accelerate the development of new aerial mobility tools.

Joby was founded in 2009 to develop electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft with the goal of providing “air taxi” services in the future.

According to Toyota, the development of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft in the fields of electrification and new materials has a lot in common with the technology of next-generation environmentally friendly vehicles, so it has a complementary effect. It is reported that Toyota will enter the “air mobility business” through this cooperation discussion, but the details need to be studied in the future.

It is reported that on February 1, 2018 Joby Aviation announced that it has received a $100 million investment in Series B financing to advance the pre-production and certification of its all-electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) manned aircraft. The round was led by Intel Capital, with strategic investors including Singapore-based EDBI, JetBlue Technology Ventures and Toyota AI Ventures.

In addition, new investors Allen & Company, AME Cloud Ventures and angel investor Ron Conway, as well as existing investors Capricorn Investment Group, 8VC Ventures, prominent investors Sky Dayton and Paul Sciarra participated in this round of financing. Combined with a previously unannounced Series A round led by Capricorn Investment Group in 2016, the company’s total funding has exceeded $130 million.

Advances in technology and materials have triggered the transformation of the $10 trillion transportation industry. Joby Aviation is a leader in electric VTOL innovation and has designed, built and tested an all-electric VTOL manned aircraft optimized for local and regional air traffic services. Joby Aviation’s 5-seater aircraft will Faster than existing rotorcraft, can fly at least 150 miles per charge, and take off and land 100 times quieter than conventional aircraft, and near silent at low altitudes.

Joby Aviation is focused on creating a new transportation solution that goes beyond the constraints of ground infrastructure to get from point A to point B in a safe, sustainable and faster way. The company aims to solve urban congestion and long commutes.

In addition to focusing on product development and flight certification, the company plans to expand its team to include experts in structural engineering, electrical engineering, power electronics, battery electrochemistry, certification, flight controls and software.

Judging from the current situation, the competition in the field of air traffic has slowly begun to intensify.

Earlier, Hyundai announced a partnership with Uber to develop a series of . The former will produce and deploy air vehicles, while the latter will be responsible for providing airspace support services, ground transportation connections and customer interfaces through an air traffic sharing network.

In addition, Daimler Group, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, also invested 25 million euros in the flying car company Volocopter as early as 2017; in September last year, Daimler also jointly invested 50 million euros with Geely to lead the investment in Volocopter In November 2017, Geely also completed the acquisition of Terrafugia flying car company in the United States.

In addition, Porsche is also working with Boeing to develop flying cars.