Reinventing the wing: With electric propulsion and lots of propellers, planes can use smaller wings to fly efficiently

I remember distinctly the cool december day in 2013 at my company's headquarters in the Santa Cruz mountains when we met with researchers from NASA to plan tests for a novel propeller configuration for electric aircraft. Somehow, our Joby Aviation team, the NASA researchers, and colleagues from another small California business brainstormed our way into a much more ambitious program than any of us had expected when the meeting began.