Archer Aviation, BETA Technologies and Macquarie Capital used the 16 July 2026 launch of America's Consortium for Electric Skyways (ACES) to try to solve the biggest bottleneck facing the emerging US electric air taxi industry: charging.
250 Sites, One Plug
The consortium's plan is to build a nationwide network of more than 250 electric aviation sites by 2030, covering airports and vertiports across California, Texas, Florida and New York where Archer and BETA intend to fly commercial passengers, cargo and medevac missions. Every station will use the Combined Charging Standard (CCS), the same connector already backed by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association and adopted by most Western eVTOL builders, so that operators from other manufacturers can plug in as well.
BETA Technologies, which already operates the largest deployed network of electric aviation chargers in the US, will supply the charging hardware. Archer contributes the passenger-carrying eVTOL fleet, led by its production Midnight aircraft. Macquarie Capital will handle financial and strategic advisory, including capital-raising for site acquisition, development and construction.
Interoperability Over Walled Gardens
Because CCS also powers most electric ground vehicles, ACES envisions the same infrastructure serving airport ground-support equipment at larger hubs, raising utilisation and blunting the incentive for any single OEM to build a proprietary charging silo. The consortium is explicitly open to additional operators, aircraft OEMs and infrastructure investors.
The launch lands on top of the FAA's accelerated push into unmanned aviation programs and its eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP), which selected eight projects earlier this year to run commercial-style operations while type certification finishes.
Farnborough Framing
The announcement lines up with the industry's other 2026 Farnborough-week eVTOL story: Vertical Aerospace demoing its Valo prototype, Eve Air Mobility booking additional Letter-of-Intent orders and Wisk moving deeper into supervised autonomous testing with NASA. Charging, however, has been the silent risk on every eVTOL business case; ACES is the first cross-OEM answer.
Related coverage on the coming electric-aviation era: Loganair's BETA ALIA CX300 order and GE Aerospace's hybrid-electric flight above 30,000 feet.
Reporting based on coverage from Archer Aviation, BETA Technologies, Macquarie Capital, Business Wire and electrive.com.