Kittyhawk, the flying-car startup backed by Google co-founder Larry Web page, introduced Wednesday that will probably be closing down.
“We now have made the choice to wind down Kittyhawk,” the corporate mentioned on Twitter. “We’re nonetheless engaged on the main points of what is subsequent.”
We now have made the choice to wind down Kittyhawk. We’re nonetheless engaged on the main points of what is subsequent.
— Kittyhawk (@kittyhawkcorp) September 21, 2022
The corporate, named for the North Carolina city by which the Wright brothers’ history-making airplane first took flight, was based in 2010 to fabricate eVTOLs — electrical vertical takeoff and touchdown plane. The startup was run and co-founded by Sebastian Thrun, a former Google VP and fellow who led the event of Google’s self-driving automotive and Google Glasses.
In 2018, the corporate unveiled the Kittyhawk Flyer, an all-electric ultralight airplane that would fly a single occupant as much as 10 toes off the bottom at speeds of as much as 20 miles per hour. Kittyhawk was additionally creating an electrical, two-person air taxi known as Cora.
Cora is central to Wisk Aero, a three way partnership Kittyhawk fashioned with Boeing in 2019. The strategic partnership was supposed to present each corporations a substantial head begin over different flying automotive/air taxi tasks, similar to UberAir and Bell Nexus.
Boeing mentioned Kittyhawk’s determination will not have an effect on Wisk Aero.
“Kitty Hawk’s determination to stop operations doesn’t change Boeing’s dedication to Wisk. We’re proud to be a founding member of Wisk Aero and are excited to see the work they’re doing to drive innovation and sustainability via the way forward for electrical air journey,” a Boeing spokesperson mentioned in an announcement. “We don’t count on Kitty Hawk’s announcement to have an effect on Wisk’s operations or different actions in any method.”
