Archer Aviation and BETA Technologies have announced an industry-first agreement to accelerate the roll out of an interoperable fast-charging system across the electric aircraft industry.
“Archer is utilising two of BETA’s Charge Cube systems at Archer’s flight test facilities, as well as a number of BETA’s Mini Cube mobile charging systems, which Archer 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” according to the press release. “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.
“Gaining access to BETA’s electric aviation charging system and network through this collaboration is another critical component of Archer’s plan to create the most efficient, and scalable, path to market for Archer’s eVTOL aircraft. Archer’s chargers bring BETA’s network to the west coast.”
Kyle Clark, BETA’s Founder and CEO said “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,” said 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.”
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(Image: BETA Technologies)
