Kitty Hawk, the ambitious ‘flying car’ startup funded by Google co-founder Larry Page, is winding down, the company has confirmed in a short post on LinkedIn earlier today.
According to a report of Insidercompany sources said Kitty Hawk had halted all work on the 100-mile Heaviside vehicle. Insider also reports that Page increasingly distanced himself from the company, but said he was more closely involved in the shift to research and development after the end of the Heaviside project.
Although Kitty Hawk is ending development on its own aircraft, at least one project will live on in its joint venture with Boeing: Wisk Aero. “Today’s news does not affect Wisk. We remain in a strong financial and strategic position, with both Boeing and Kitty Hawk as investors,” said Wisk spokesman Chris Brown. The edge. At the beginning of this year, Boeing had another $450 million sink into Wisk Aero during its latest financing round.
Today’s news does not affect Wisk. We remain in a strong financial position, with both @Boeing and @kittyhawkcorp as investors. https://t.co/Pe98tOX9cI
— Wisk (@WiskAero) September 21, 2022
Kitty Hawk revealed himself in 2017 when the company released a video of its “Flyer” personal transport vehicle, ahead of another autonomous aircraft it was developing called Cora, which evolved into Wisk Aero.
The Flyer was one of the first vehicles to appear during an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) boom that eventually included others such as Toyota-backed Joby Aviation, Volocopter and Lilium, as well as projects from established names such as Bell Helicopter and Uber. And in 2018, The edge discovered that Larry Page owns another flying car company called Opener.
But when the startup couldn’t find a viable business path for the Flyer, it turned its focus to Heaviside — and now even that’s toast.
