Archer Aviation and BETA Technologies have agreed to accelerate the roll out of an interoperable fast-charging system across the electric aircraft industry.
Archer is utilizing two of BETA’s Charge Cube systems at its flight test facilities, as well as a number of BETA’s Mini Cube mobile charging systems, which the company plans to rapidly deploy as needed.
BETA’s charging system utilizes the Combined Charging Standard (CCS), a multimodal, interoperable standard employed by the top OEM’s. This GAMA endorsed standard comes with peer reviewed and global certification standards and is harmonized with EUROCAE ED-308. BETA’s charging systems are already in use at 14 locations across the eastern U.S., and development work is underway to install them at another 55 locations along the East and Gulf Coasts, as well as at Archer’s facilities in California.
According to Archer, gaining access to BETA’s leading electric aviation charging system and network through this collaboration is another critical component of its plan to create the most efficient, and scalable, path to market for its eVTOL aircraft. Archer’s chargers bring BETA’s network to the west coast. This milestone collaboration for the industry follows the expansion of BETA’s network down the east coast – including the first electric aircraft charger on a DoD installation located at Duke Field, Eglin Air Force Base.
“Fast charging is critical to ensure rapid turnaround times between flights,” said Adam Goldstein, Archer’s Founder and CEO. “A widespread, fast charging system is critical to ensuring electric air taxis reach scale in the coming years and this collaboration between two industry leaders is an exciting step towards achieving that.”
“Over the past decade, transportation has shifted toward electric and now we’re seeing resonance and viability for aviation to do the same,” said Kyle Clark, BETA’s Founder and CEO. “A backbone of reliable, fast and accessible infrastructure will be critical to enabling this technology, which is why we’ve been focused on building out a charging network alongside our aircraft for some time now. When we designed our chargers, we saw an opportunity to support the entire sector by using an already peer reviewed standard, and we’re thrilled to collaborate with Archer now to validate that aim.”
“The adoption of a unified charging standard will help promote electric aviation’s development at scale,” commented Pete Bunce, President and CEO of GAMA. “Enabling electric aircraft and electric ground vehicles from different manufacturers to share charging infrastructure will help reduce the costs of electrifying existing infrastructure. A common standard will boost confidence in the emerging Advanced Air Mobility sector of our industry and encourage adoption of, and access to, publicly accessible charging networks.”
Dr. Michael Schwekutsch, SVP Powertrain at Archer, added: “During my time as the VP of Powertrain Engineering at Tesla it was well understood that having a widely accessible, fast-charger network was key to driving the adoption of EVs and the same is true for eVTOLs and that’s why we are so excited to collaborate with BETA to build out the charging network for our electric air taxis.”
