GM surprises with Cadillac eVTOL air taxi at CES 2021

This story is part of CES, where our editors will present the latest news and the hottest gadgets from CES 2021 entirely virtual.

General Motors is telegraphing that it also plans to join the burgeoning eVTOL air taxi business – and the company plans to do so in style. As part of your virtual CES Expo, GM Exhibit Zero, the automaker on Tuesday unveiled renderings and animations of a battery-powered Cadillac personal aircraft.

The sleek vertical electric take-off and landing aircraft would be GM’s first foray into air mobility, and the company says this four-rotor aircraft is powered by a 90 kWh EV engine at speeds up to 56 mph. In addition, details are scarce – GM has stopped offering more technical details, let alone committing to production or detailing a deadline by which we can expect to see these eVTOLs, as they are known, on the air. Based on the images, this looks like a single-seat drone, probably for short urban jumps performed autonomously.

GM is the latest automaker to look up at the sky and to consider entering the air taxi market. In fact, on Tuesday, rivals crosses the city in FCA announced a partnership with Archer to build eVTOL air taxis. Other automakers, such as Hyundai and Aston Martin, also made demands in this new mobility space. Rapid advances in batteries, electric motors and cloud-based services for electric cars and trucks have helped to make inroads into electric personal aircraft seem more plausible. GM’s big investment in its Ultium The EV hardware program looks like it can help pay big dividends here.

It is not immediately clear whether GM has a working eVTOL prototype at this point, or what is the next step in the development of this new business for GM.