China has been making big waves in the eVTOL space lately, thanks to breakthroughs like world-first type certification, commercial operations and next-gen battery breakthroughs. But Silicon Valley's Joby has been moving along quite steadily in recent times, having started manned demo flights last year, including one in New York City.

Now Joby leverages hydrogen toward necking out ahead of the competition ... for the moment. Say what you will about the tough hill hydrogen has to climb to prove itself in automobiles, but its superior energy-to-weight density starts to look quite attractive when it comes to aircraft that have to battle gravity in lifting their full weight and payload off the ground.

Just look at the 19-mile (31-km) tether tied extra tightly around the world-first-certified eHang EH216-S, and it begins to become clear that modern battery tech isn't quite ready to support current-gen electric aircraft for anything more ambitious than local scenic quick-hops and cross-town taxi rides. Joby's battery-electric range is neck and neck with the 155.7-mile (250.64-km) Autoflight Prosperity as the absolute best in the market, but even that won't get much done in terms of meaningful passenger or cargo transportation beyond city limits.

Hydrogen has been an option from the beginning – but it's a far less mature technology than lithium batteries, particularly in cryogenic liquid form where the weight advantages are greatest. Joby acquired German hydrogen aircraft pioneer H2Fly in 2021, which has done some amazing work in the space – including the world's first piloted flight of a liquid-hydrogen-fueled electric aircraft last September, using its HY4 winged demonstrator.

This time around, Joby retrofitted the liquid hydrogen fueling and fuel cell power system to its pre-production tilt-rotor eVTOL, a unit that had previously put in 25,000 test miles (40,200 km) under battery power. With the fuel cell there to supply the vessel's six rotors with continuous electric power, it was able to complete a journey of 523 miles (842 km) while emitting only water vapor – and it had 10% of its fuel left over upon landing, according to Joby.

"Imagine being able to fly from San Francisco to San Diego, Boston to Baltimore, or Nashville to New Orleans without the need to go to an airport and with no emissions except water," commented JoeBen Bevirt, Joby founder and CEO. "That world is closer than ever, and the progress we've made towards certifying the battery-electric version of our aircraft gives us a great head start as we look ahead to making hydrogen-electric flight a reality."