Archer and BETA Plan Texas Charging Network for TxDOT Air Taxi Pilot

America’s Consortium for Electric Skyways (ACES), the electric-aviation charging venture launched by Archer Aviation (ACHR ), BETA Technologies and Macquarie Capital, announced plans on September 10, 2026, to bring its interoperable charging network to Texas in support of the Texas Department of Transportation’s air taxi operations under the White House’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP).

According to the consortium’s announcement, ACES plans to expand interoperable electric-aviation charging infrastructure across key Texas locations, including airports, fixed-base operators (FBOs) and other points of interest. Over the coming months, the consortium plans to work with TxDOT and state and local partners to identify where eVTOL operators expect to fly under the program and where charging infrastructure should be located to enable those operations. The announcement states that all-electric air taxi flights are planned in Texas in the coming months by BETA, Archer and other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

TxDOT was selected for the eIPP in March 2026. According to the announcement, TxDOT and ACES share a goal of connecting the Texas Triangle (Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio and Houston) and rural communities with air taxi networks expanding from each city to extend regional reach.

“The future of aviation is taking flight in Texas,” said Sergio Roman, TxDOT’s Emerging Aviation Tech Director. “The eIPP is a first-of-its-kind effort to safely integrate electric aircraft into U.S. airspace, and building the charging infrastructure to support those operations puts Texas squarely at the center of the next generation of aviation — improving safety and connectivity for communities across the state.”

“Texas is preparing the way for America to lead the world in commercializing the next generation of aviation technologies, and infrastructure is how that push becomes real,” said Adam Goldstein, founder and CEO of Archer Aviation. “ACES plans to put interoperable chargers where eIPP operations will take place, built on an open standard the whole industry can use. That’s the foundation Texas needs to set the region up for passenger air taxi flights across the Texas Triangle as part of the final phase of the Texas eIPP pilot.”

BETA Technologies founder and CEO Kyle Clark said aircraft are only useful with the infrastructure in place to support them, adding that Texas offers an opportunity to put that work into practice alongside TxDOT and show how shared charging infrastructure can support real operations.

The ACES Consortium and Its Charging Model

Archer, BETA and Macquarie Capital launched ACES on July 16, 2026, with a goal to electrify up to 250 air taxi sites across the largest U.S. airports and metro areas over the next decade, including airports and vertiports in California, Texas, Florida and New York.

Under the consortium’s stated division of roles, BETA supplies purpose-built charging hardware for each site, built on the Combined Charging Standard (CCS), the open standard endorsed by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA) and adopted broadly across the eVTOL industry, allowing interoperability across electric-aircraft manufacturers. Archer anchors the network with plans to launch passenger air taxi operations in the target cities. Macquarie Capital, the advisory, capital markets and principal investment arm of Macquarie Group, provides strategic advice to the consortium, including helping arrange the investment capital necessary to fund site acquisition and the subsequent development and construction of the facilities.

The shared infrastructure model is designed so that multiple operators and use cases run on the same chargers. Under the model outlined at launch, Archer would access the network for passenger air taxi operations during peak operational hours, BETA’s customers would use it to support cargo operations and medical transport, and CCS-compatible chargers at major airports would also be available to airport ground support vehicles. The companies describe the approach as a pathway for additional infrastructure operators, OEMs and investors to join in building a unified network rather than fragmenting into competing proprietary systems.

BETA states that it has flown its ALIA family of aircraft, which includes conventional fixed-wing and electric vertical takeoff and landing models, more than 160,000 nautical miles, and that it is deploying a charging network of more than 100 sites in the United States and internationally.

The Texas eIPP Pilot

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy and the Federal Aviation Administration announced the eight selected eIPP proposals on March 9, 2026, spanning 26 states. The program stems from President Trump’s Unleashing Drone Dominance Executive Order, and the FAA said the selected projects will create one of the largest real-world testing environments for next-generation aircraft in the world. More than 30 proposals were submitted and evaluated by a technical review team from the Department of Transportation and the FAA. The agency said data from the pilot projects will be used to develop new regulations that safely enable the technology at scale, and that the American public would start to see operations begin under the program by summer 2026.

The FAA listed Archer, BETA, Joby and Wisk as industry partners on the Texas Department of Transportation project, supporting regional flights connecting Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and eventually Houston. Across the eight selected projects, operational concepts include urban air taxi services, regional passenger transportation, cargo and logistics networks, emergency medical response operations, autonomous flight technologies and offshore and energy-sector transportation.

TxDOT has outlined a phased three-year pilot. The first phase involves testing without passengers, using traditional aircraft such as helicopters and fixed-wing planes to perform tests and validate routes. Subsequent phases cover medical and cargo logistics, such as transporting critical medical supplies or organs between rural facilities and urban medical centers in Austin and San Antonio. The final phase involves passenger air taxi flights across the Texas Triangle, with the stated goal of creating a multi-state “System of Systems” rather than isolated tests in a single city, building the infrastructure to handle transitions between urban, rural and state airspace.

The September 10 announcement also noted that Archer launched its “No Roads” flight tour in the week before the announcement, expanding its city-to-city flight test program for its all-electric Midnight air taxi across the United States in close coordination with the FAA. Archer states that these flights pave the way for its eIPP operations in Texas, Florida and New York, and for beginning to fly Midnight in the Los Angeles area later this year as the Official Air Taxi Provider of the LA28 Games.