Joby Aviation Takes a Huge Piece of the UAM Sunday Pie

So much excitement has captured the eVTOL community after the announcement of the Joby partnerships between companies in several different market sectors. If you stocks valuation is your thing, Joby stock has double in the last 30 days (of this writing) following the announcement of such partnerships. If the strength of partnerships is how you measure a company’s potential then consider Delta Airlines, Toyota Motor Corporation, Edwards Airforce Base, and SK Telecom have dedicated to work alongside Joby.

Click a company to jump to sections detailing how Joby’s partners are supporting them

What began as a hungry startup, Joby spent more than a decade chopping wood and carrying water to prove their design was simple, affordable, and deserved of dominating the eVTOL market.

Delta announced the partnership with Joby in October 2022 along with a 60-million dollar investment and expect the financial support to grow as the company hits key certification and production milestones.

Since then, the companies have been working on integrating Joby’s services with Delta’s customer-facing channels of operation (Delta). Once Joby gets certified by the FAA, the Joby aircrat transportation system will be operational by 2025, carrying Delta customers to and from the airport. After that, a timer will start for a 5-year mutually exclusive contract between Delta and Joby with the option to extend that contract at any time (Joby Aviation1).

This partnership is a result of similar values held by both companies’ leaderships which is a focus on addressing what matters most to their customers. Delta is driven by amplifying customer experience with products, choices, and solutions that make the experience of travel more seamlesss, enjoyable, and wait-free (Delta). Joby CEO, JoeBen Bevirt, says “it’s an honor to work alongside them,” so much more is expected from the partners going forward.

Toyota is Joby’s most invested partner with total offerings equal to 400 million since 2020. The latest news about this partnership was reported last week when Toyota Motor North America President and CEO, Tetsuo “Ted” Ogawa, was appointed to the Board of Directors.

Toyota has a secret superpower when it comes to highly optimizing manufacturing processes, and Joby has no objections to accepting a hand up by letting Toyota engineers help design tools for them and optimize the layout of their production facility. Apart from the logistics strategies Toyota has to offer, the company signed a long-term agreement with Joby for supplying unique powertrain and actuation components for the aircraft (Joby Aviation2).

The Edwards Airforce Base in Marina, California accepted Joby’s bid for the Company’s Agility Prime contract in 2020 which granted it a total of 131 million. Edwards was probably chosen solely based on proximity to the California based production facility. Securing a government contract for electric aerial transport of large payloads is a huge step to a sustainable market dominance for Joby.

As it stands now, Edwards Airforce Base will be Jobys first official customer to take delivery of its aircraft in early 2024, but the aircraft will be limited to logistics missions of non-human cargo until Joby gets human passenger certification in 2025 (Weitering). Before that, however, the Navy and Army are showing interest in using Joby aircraft for their missions.

The most recent partnership update to be announced with Joby is with SK Telecom. A 100 million dollar equity investment was made this last week by SK Telecom, South Korea’s leading telecommunications company. This partnership allows Joby to work alongside SKT under a program led by Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport designed to establish aerial ride-sharing in Korea.

Initial talks of collaboration started in February 2022, but the CEO of SK Telecom plans to promote functionality and commercialization of urban air mobility in Korea by supporting Joby as they build the mobility ecosystem in Korea (Joby Aviation3).