Item 1. Business
Item 1. Business
Overview
We are developing an all-electric, vertical take-off and landing (“eVTOL”) air taxi which we intend to operate in cities around the world. Our mission is to help the world connect faster and more easily with the people and places that matter most by delivering a new form of clean, fast, quiet and convenient aerial transportation service. The Joby eVTOL is designed to transport a pilot and up to four passengers - or an expected payload of up to 1,000 pounds - at speeds of up to 200 mph. The aircraft is optimized for urban routes, with a target range of up to 100 miles on a single charge. According to our modeling, more than 99% of urban routes in cities such as New York City and Los Angeles are significantly shorter than this, enabling higher utilization through faster turnaround times of our aircraft. By combining the freedom of air travel with the efficiency of our aircraft, we expect to deliver journeys that are up to 10 times faster than driving, and it is our goal to steadily drive down end-user pricing in the years following commercial launch to make the service widely accessible.
Our aircraft has been specifically designed with multiple redundancies across systems and components for enhanced safety and to achieve a considerably lower noise footprint than that of similarly sized conventional aircraft or helicopters. It is quiet at takeoff and near silent when flying overhead, which we anticipate will allow us to operate from new vertiport locations nearer to where people live and work, in addition to utilizing the more than 5,000 heliport and airport infrastructure facilities already in existence in the U.S.
We are in the process of certifying our aircraft with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”). This involves a rigorous process of design, testing, verification and quality control. We have also begun working with regulators in other countries, including the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Australia and the United Arab Emirates (“UAE”) to pursue
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commercialization opportunities in those markets. While foreign certification in many countries leverages our work with the FAA, in some, such as the UAE, it may also provide a path to commercial operations prior to receiving certification in the United States.
In November 2024, we completed our first international exhibition flight at Toyota’s Higashi-Fuji Technical Center in Shizuoka, Japan. Shortly thereafter, in December 2024, we completed a series of flight tests in Korea as part of the K-UAM Grand Challenge.
We do not currently intend to sell our aircraft to independent third parties or individual customers as a primary business model. Instead, we plan to manufacture, own and operate our aircraft ourselves, building a vertically integrated transportation company that will deliver transportation services to customers, including government agencies such as the U.S. Air Force (“USAF”) through sales or contracted operations, and to individual end-users through a convenient app-based aerial ridesharing service. We began initial service operations with the U.S. Department of Defense (“DOD”) in September 2023 and are targeting initial passenger operations in 2025 or 2026. We believe this vertically-integrated business model will generate the greatest economic returns over time, while providing us with end-to-end control over the customer experience to optimize for customer safety, comfort and value. There may be circumstances in which it is either required (for example, due to operating restrictions on foreign ownership in other countries) or otherwise desirable (for example, direct sale of aircraft to business customers with ongoing training and maintenance support packages) to sell aircraft in the future. We do not expect this would change our core focus on building a vertically integrated transportation company.
We operate a powertrain and electronics engineering and manufacturing facility in San Carlos, California, as well as 130,000 square feet of additive and subtractive manufacturing, machining, aircraft assembly and flight test facilities in Marina, California. With local support from California state incentives and grants, we have begun construction of a new building at our Marina site to support manufacturing and training that will double the footprint of that location. These facilities are utilized to design, build and test the components, systems and assemblies for our aircraft as we refine our design and hone our production process. We believe that our California operations will both be able to support our initial low-rate production plans as well as serve as a testing and development facility for future innovations. Our high-rate production facility is planned for Dayton, Ohio where we purchased a 40,300 square foot facility in 2024 and have identified a separate 140-acre site that has the potential to support significant growth over time, with enough land to build over two million square feet of manufacturing space. With strong financial incentives and support from state and local governments, we look forward to expanding our manufacturing in the birthplace of aviation as our business grows.
Our preparations for commercial passenger service include forming sector-leading relationships with partners such as Toyota, Uber, and Delta Air Lines, all of whom have invested in Joby, as well as global partners such as ANA Airlines in Japan and the Road and Transport Authority in Dubai. We have also established relationships with infrastructure providers including fixed base operators of landing sites such as Atlantic Aviation, Helo Holdings, Inc. (“HHI”) and Skyports to facilitate infrastructure development in key markets. Additionally, we have long-standing relationships in research and development with federal government agencies as we evolved our design.
Joby Aero, Inc. (“Legacy Joby”) was incorporated in Delaware on November 21, 2016. In August 2021, Legacy Joby and Reinvent Technology Partners, a Cayman Islands exempted company and special purpose acquisition company (“RTP”), completed a merger and other transactions pursuant to which a subsidiary of RTP was merged with and into Legacy Joby and Legacy Joby survived as a wholly owned subsidiary of RTP. In connection with the transactions, Legacy Joby changed its name to Joby Aviation, Inc.
Our principal executive office is located at 333 Encinal Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95060. Our telephone number is (831) 201-6700. Our website address is www.jobyaviation.com. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) maintains a website at www.sec.gov, that contains reports, proxy and information statements, and other information regarding issuers that file electronically with the SEC. We also make available, free of charge, all of our SEC filings on our website at ir.jobyaviation.com as soon as reasonably practicable after they are electronically filed with or furnished to the SEC. We have a code of ethics that applies to our executive officers, directors and employees, including our principal executive officer, principal financial officer, principal accounting officer or controller or persons performing similar functions. The code of ethics is available on our website, ir.jobyaviation.com. We intend to make any legally required disclosures regarding amendments to, or waivers of, provisions of our code of ethics on our website rather than by filing a Current Report on Form 8-K. The information contained on any of the websites referenced in this Annual Report are not part of or incorporated by reference into this or any other report we file with or furnish to the SEC.
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Our Aircraft
Our team of world-class engineers has been working for more than a decade to develop an aircraft specifically designed for aerial ridesharing. Over that period, we have built a team that is deeply committed to vertically integrated engineering, testing, prototyping and manufacturing. Developing much of the aircraft in-house has required greater up-front investment, but has also allowed us to develop systems and components that are specifically engineered for their intended applications. We believe this has resulted in an aircraft with best-in-class capabilities across key performance metrics, while reducing reliance on program critical third-party suppliers that add cost to the final product and risk to development and certification schedules.
We designed our aircraft to be safe, quiet and performant - all characteristics that we believe are critical to unlocking the aerial ridesharing market.
• Safe : Distributed electric propulsion has greater redundancy than centrally-located internal combustion engines. Each of our six propellers is powered by two independent electric motors, each in turn driven by independent drive-units. Each drive-unit draws power from one of four separate batteries onboard the aircraft.
This emphasis on redundancy is extended to other critical subsystems of the aircraft, including the flight computers, control surfaces, communications network and actuators. The result is a design intended to enhance safety across critical aircraft systems compared to similarly sized conventional aircraft and helicopters.
While these advancements in technology contribute to the overall safety of the aircraft, we recognize that safely delivering a commercial aviation operation requires both organizational and cultural commitments. We’ve made safety a core value, and we actively promote that value across the team.
Given our intent to both manufacture and operate our aircraft, we are developing a comprehensive, vertically-integrated, Enterprise Safety Management System (“SMS”), covering aircraft, manufacturing, operations, maintenance and flight training. Through the enterprise approach, SMS interfaces will facilitate the exchange of information to continuously improve the safety of our aircraft and operations. In 2024, we were accepted into the FAA Voluntary SMS for Air Operations.
• Quiet : Developing an aircraft with a low noise footprint that allows for regular operations within metropolitan areas is critical to community acceptance. In addition to the benefits afforded by an all-electric powertrain, we’ve devoted substantial engineering resources to reduce the noise signature of the aircraft even further. The result is an aircraft that is significantly quieter than a twin-engine helicopter, exhibiting a noise profile in the range of 65 dBA during takeoff and landing (the noisiest configuration), roughly the volume of a normal speaking voice. In over-head flight as low as 500 feet the aircraft is near silent. We have independently validated the noise footprint of our prototype aircraft through our work with NASA.
• Performant : Our commitment to vertical integration and in-house development has allowed for optimization of systems and components across the aircraft, resulting in better energy efficiency, range, and speed than what would otherwise be available using commercial-off-the-shelf components. Our aircraft demonstrates energy efficiency comparable to best-in-class electric ground vehicles. While we anticipate our average journey to be around 25 miles, we believe the expected range and speed of our aircraft will allow us to service a more diverse set of passengers and trips, resulting in greater operational flexibility and reduced operating costs.
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The end result is a transformational new electric aircraft that is uniquely capable of pioneering this exciting new market - all with a minimal environmental footprint.
The innovations that we’ve produced to deliver this best-in-class performance are supported by extensive proprietary intellectual property and defended by a robust patent portfolio. Over more than a decade of development, we have generated broad fundamental patents around the architecture of our aircraft and the core technologies that enable our best-in-class performance. We intend to continue to build our intellectual property (“IP”) portfolio with respect to the technologies that we develop and refine.
Charging
We have developed proprietary charging infrastructure optimized for electric aircraft. Joby’s Global Electric Aviation Charging System (GEACS) is designed to support the safe and efficient operations of electric aircraft, including simultaneous charging of multiple battery packs, battery conditioning for ultra-fast charging, and secure data download to address safety and cybersecurity. After 10 years of development, in 2023, we announced that we would open-source and share the specifications for the universal charging interface we developed, making it freely available to our industry.
The Urban Air Mobility Market
Ground-Based Transportation Networks are Under Strain
Population growth and urbanization are stretching ground-based transportation infrastructure to its limits. Today, more than fifty percent of the world’s approximately 8 billion people live in urban areas. Megacities, with 10 million people or more inhabitants, are home to a growing share of the world’s population, projected to reach 752 million people by 2030, according to the United Nations (“UN”).
Transportation is the life-blood of urban areas, and population growth combined with increased urbanization will continue to push this infrastructure to the brink. According to a 2021 report, the cost of traffic congestion to the U.S. economy alone was more than $190 billion in 2019. The same study found that, in the top 15 metro areas alone, automobile commuters spent an aggregate of nearly 5 billion hours per year in traffic congestion and burned an extra 1.83 billion gallons of fuel.
New light rail lines can cost more than $100 million per mile in the U.S. and routinely exceed twice that number. Moving beneath the surface to expand our subway networks is even more expensive, with new subway lines often costing nearly a $1 billion per mile. These ground-based networks cannot scale efficiently, and the costs are prohibitive. We believe that cities need a new, sustainable mobility solution.
Sizable Untapped Market Opportunity
Developing sustainable mobility solutions is particularly critical and timely given the threat that climate change poses to our communities and to our planet. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”), the top source of CO2 emissions in the U.S. is the transportation sector. Any solution to current and future transportation demands must embrace sustainability.
Over the past two decades, improvements in lithium-ion batteries and power electronics alongside the ever-increasing performance of microelectronics have enabled the development and deployment of new sustainable energy and transportation solutions. The success of electric ground vehicles has fueled continued investments in these technologies. Battery energy densities, in particular, have improved such that application to aviation is now practical. Additionally, we believe that other future technologies, such as hydrogen and solid-state batteries, have the potential to play an important role in decarbonizing flight in the longer term.
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We believe that deploying a new type of aerial mobility network in cities represents an extensive market opportunity. Fundamentally, an aerial mobility network is nodal vs. the path-based nature of ground mobility. Each new node added to the network adds connectivity to all the other nodes, whereas each new mile of road, rail, or tunnel only extends one single route by one mile. In a nodal network, a linear increase in the number of nodes leads to an exponential increase in the number of connections.
In addition, the challenges associated with getting in and out of city centers can make frequent, casual travel impractical. We expect that streamlining this experience will open up previously untapped sources of latent demand, much the same way that the development of modern jetliners unlocked demand for transatlantic travel.
Leading investment banks and consulting firms have recently assessed the scale of this market. According to a 2021 report by Morgan Stanley, the urban air mobility sector's total addressable market is projected to reach $1 trillion globally by 2040. While this may initially reflect replacement of loud, carbon-fuel focused transportation with clean energy eVTOL options, we believe additional use cases and applications will emerge as the market evolves.
Business Model
Our business model is based on capturing the most value through vertical integration. We believe it is an important part of our design, manufacturing and operations as it enables us to develop a more performant aircraft and tightly-integrated operations with a goal of long-term, durable margins. Particularly in a new industry such as Urban Air Mobility, everything from the exacting certification requirements for an electric air taxi to the individual experience of end users can be better managed with a vertically integrated business model. When we started the business, the existing supply base did not have the technology we required in the size, dimensions and power needed. There are multiple examples of Joby-engineered parts, such as our flight control computer or direct drive electronic propulsion unit, that we believe generate more power in a smaller footprint and with fewer moving parts than ever before possible. Close collaboration between design, production and testing teams yield tight, iterative cycles, leading to innovative solutions in less time than if we were dependent on outside vendors. We expect this will be a competitive advantage now and in future years as our experience operating the air taxi service will flow into the design of next generation products.
Our Aerial Ridesharing Service
We intend to build an aerial ridesharing service powered by a network of eVTOL aircraft that we will manufacture and operate. We are developing an app-based platform that will enable consumers to book rides directly through our service. We also plan to integrate access to our service into leading third-party demand aggregation platforms, including through our partnerships with Uber and Delta Air Lines. Whether our service is accessed through our own platform, or through a partner app, we will integrate ground transportation providers for the first and last mile with our aerial service, providing a seamless, end-to-end travel experience.
We refer to trips that integrate air and ground legs together as ‘multimodal.’ By building network management software that efficiently sequences multimodal trips, we believe we can provide substantial time savings to travelers while coordinating the development of optimally-located vertiport infrastructure. Additionally, we are developing software that will coordinate multiple riders into each air leg, allowing us to drive high utilization rates for our aircraft and, in turn, progressive reduction in end-user pricing.
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We believe that our app-based aerial ridesharing service will be fast, convenient, comfortable, environmentally sustainable and, over time, progressively more affordable. By maintaining full control over the design, development, test, manufacture and operations of our aircraft, we intend to deliver a service that is optimized from beginning to end, positioning us to be the leading company in this market.
Our vertically integrated business model ensures we are not simply manufacturing aircraft for sale and receiving one-time revenues, but instead generating recurring revenues over the lifetime of the aircraft with corresponding benefits to contribution margin.
Additional Opportunities at Scale
We believe that being early to market with the right aircraft will provide important first mover advantages that will enable us to steadily drive down end-user pricing in the years following commercial launch. Emerging technologies often benefit from positive network effects as the product or service enters the market, and we expect this to hold true for aerial ridesharing.
As additional passengers enter the network, we expect utilization rates for our aircraft will increase, thereby improving unit economics and allowing costs to be amortized over a greater number of trips. At the same time, we believe reductions in per aircraft costs driven by greater manufacturing scale will be able to support progressively lower pricing while maintaining similar per aircraft unit profitability.
Certification
Type Certification
In the U.S., new aircraft designs are required to pass through the rigorous FAA design certification process, known as type certification, before the aircraft can be issued a standard airworthiness certificate to fly in the National Airspace System (“NAS”). This is an exacting process that requires extensive ground and in-flight testing with the FAA. We anticipate we will initially certify the aircraft for day and night visual flight rules (“VFR”) operations and we plan to amend the design to include instrument flight rules (“IFR”) capabilities.
Our aircraft was originally intended to be certified in line with the FAA's existing Part 23 requirements as a normal category piloted electric airplane that can also takeoff and land vertically. We began working with the FAA in 2017, and in 2020 we became the first eVTOL company to receive a signed, stage 4 G-1 certification basis from the FAA. The G-1 certification basis is an agreement with the FAA that lays out the specific requirements that need to be met by our aircraft for it to be certified for commercial operations. In May 2022, the FAA indicated that they were revisiting the decision to
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certify all eVTOLs under Part 23 and would, instead, require certification under the “powered lift” classification. Based on the FAA’s revised certification requirements, we signed an updated G-1 certification basis in July 2022, which was published in the federal register in November 2022.
We think of the type certification process in five stages. Stages one to three can be considered the “definition”
phase, while stages four and five are the “implementation” phase. Progress in type certification is not always linear, meaning it is possible to make simultaneous progress in different stages on different aircraft parts or systems, depending on their maturity.
• Stage 1 - Certification Basis : The company works with the FAA to define the scope of the type certification project, reaching an agreement on what type of aircraft is being built and which set of rules and regulations will apply.
• Stage 2 - Means of Compliance : The company looks more closely at the safety rules and identifies the means of demonstrating compliance with them.
• Stage 3 - Certification Plans : The company develops a wide range of detailed certification plans stipulating which tests need to be performed for each system area in order to satisfy the means of compliance.
• Stage 4 - Testing & Analysis : The company plans, documents and completes thousands of inspections, tests and analyses in accordance with the certification plans previously drawn up in the third stage.
• Stage 5 - Show & Verify : The results of the testing are verified by the FAA. Upon successful completion of this stage, a type certification is issued.
With a mature design based on thousands of test flights to date, we are well on our way towards certification and are engaging with the FAA to perform the hard work and testing required to earn FAA type certification.
We expect the FAA type certificate will be reciprocated in certain international markets pursuant to bilateral agreements between the FAA and its counterpart civil aviation authorities. In 2022, we applied for aircraft certification in the United Kingdom and Japan and in 2024, we applied for aircraft certification in Australia, following announcements by regulators in those countries adopting streamlined certification processes based on FAA certification. In 2023, we signed an agreement with Road and Transport Authority of Dubai (“RTA”) for Joby to provide air taxi services in Dubai. The RTA agreement includes a roadmap for local approval by the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (“GCAA”) that could precede type certification by the FAA. These arrangements provide a means of efficient international expansion as we develop commercial operations around the world.
Our path to certification leverages a large body of existing processes, procedures and standards. However, many of the rules for eVTOL certification and operations are still being finalized by the FAA, and the FAA could revise the existing rules and regulations or impose additional requirements that would extend our timeline for certification.
Production Certification
We are developing the systems and processes needed to obtain FAA production certification and intend to obtain our production certificate shortly after completion of our aircraft type certificate. We believe there are opportunities to leverage advanced manufacturing techniques such as additive manufacturing to further improve the performance of the aircraft. However, if additively manufactured components or other advanced production processes cannot be certified expediently, our aircraft can be produced using conventional aerospace manufacturing techniques.
Operating Certification
The U.S. Department of Transportation (“DOT”) and the FAA exercise regulatory authority over air transportation operations in the U.S. Our intended transportation service is expected to be regulated by the Federal Aviation Regulations, including 14 Code of Federal Regulations 135 (“Part 135”). We received our Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate in 2022, demonstrating the advancement of our procedures and training program and, importantly, enabling our team to begin utilizing the operations and customer technology platforms that will underpin our multi-modal ridesharing service in the future. Air carriers holding Part 135 operations specifications can conduct on-demand operations, which may include limited scheduled operations. If such an air carrier receives a commuter air carrier authorization from the DOT, the air carrier may provide unlimited scheduled operations as well as on-demand operations. We received our Part 145 Repair Station Certificate in February 2024, which qualifies us to perform select aircraft maintenance activities and will lay the foundation for us to perform maintenance, repair, and overhaul services on our eVTOL aircraft once it is certified for commercial operations. Additionally, in December 2024, we received our Part 141 Flight School Certificate for our Joby Aviation Academy pilot training program.
In October 2024, the FAA published the Special Federal Aviation Regulations (“SFARs”), which include operational regulations for eVTOL aircraft. We will need to comply with these SFARs as we add our aircraft to our Part 135 operating
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certificate. If there are other changes or revisions to the SFARs or other applicable regulations, this could delay our ability to obtain type certification, and could delay our ability to launch our commercial passenger service.
Our operations may become subject to additional federal, state and local requirements in the future.
Airspace Integration
The aircraft has been designed to be operated within the existing airspace rules and regulations with a qualified pilot in command onboard the aircraft. As the density of air traffic increases, we believe there are opportunities to expand ground infrastructure and create air traffic efficiencies. Over time, we anticipate the importance of working with the FAA, local authorities and other stakeholders to identify and develop procedures along high demand routes to support increased scale and operational tempo. Constructs for operating along those routes may include specific airspace corridors like those outlined by the FAA. In the long term, digital clearance deliveries, airspace authorizations and automated coordination between service providers and operators may be required to further increase airspace scalability. We expect to continue to be involved in long-term activities to develop concepts and technologies (for example those led by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (“NASA”) and the FAA) to further enable scaling towards mature and autonomous operations.
Policy Engagements with Decision Makers & Communities
Providing a successful air transportation service requires collaboration with local communities to ensure the services provide the right solutions in the right locations. We plan to grow our engagement at the state and local levels within the U.S. and with key international partners in the coming years.
While the regulation of the aircraft and its operation with the NAS falls within the purview of the FAA, takeoff and landing locations often require state and local approval for zoning and land use. In many cases, existing airports and heliports are subject to regulations by local authorities.
Noise Regulations
The Airport Noise and Capacity Act of 1990 recognizes the rights of operators of airports to implement noise and access restrictions so long as such programs do not interfere unreasonably with interstate or foreign commerce or the national air transportation system. In addition, states and local municipalities are able to set ordinances for zoning and land use, which may include noise or other restrictions such as curfews. Finally, foreign governments may allow airports and/or municipalities to enact similar restrictions. Accordingly, minimizing the volume and characteristics of noise within and above communities has been an important focus for us in order to drive community acceptance.
Our aircraft has been designed to minimize noise to allow for operations in and out of new vertiports that are nearer to where people want to live and work. At our noisiest configuration, the aircraft has a noise profile in the range of 65 dBA, roughly the volume of a normal talking voice. Given our low noise profile, we do not expect our operations to be constrained to on-airport operations.
Partnerships
We believe that our strategic relationships provide us with another point of competitive differentiation. Across each of the important activities of high-volume manufacturing, go-to-market strategy and pre-certification operations, we have established strong collaborations and relationships with Toyota, Delta, Uber, SK Telecom and the DOD to help achieve our objectives and de-risk our commercial strategy.
Toyota Motor Corporation
As of December 31, 2024, Toyota has invested nearly $400 million in Joby, making Toyota our largest outside investor. In 2024, Toyota signed a stock purchase agreement pursuant to which they committed to invest up to an additional $500 million, subject to the satisfaction of certain closing conditions. As of the date of this Annual Report, no closing have occurred under the stock purchase agreement. In addition to their substantial financial backing, Toyota engineers are working shoulder to shoulder with their Joby counterparts on a daily basis, collaborating on projects such as factory planning and layout, manufacturing process development and design for manufacturability. In 2023, we signed a long-term supply agreement with Toyota to supply key powertrain and actuation components for our aircraft.
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We believe that our collaboration with Toyota has provided and continues to provide us with a significant competitive advantage as we design and build out our high-volume manufacturing capability. In addition to being the world’s largest automaker, Toyota is globally recognized for delivering quality, safety and reliability at scale, all of which are necessary characteristics in aerospace manufacturing. We believe this makes Toyota a strong collaboration partner as we continue to develop our high-volume manufacturing capabilities.
Uber Technologies, Inc.
We believe that our partnership with Uber Technologies, Inc. and our acquisition of Uber’s Elevate business, provides us with two important competitive advantages in our go-to-market planning and execution.
First, through our 2021 acquisition of Elevate we were able to welcome experienced team members from Uber, along with a set of software tools focused on planning and operations the Elevate team had developed over several years. We believe this positions us to make uniquely informed, data-driven decisions in the lead up to commercial launch, as well as accelerating our operational readiness.
Additionally, our collaboration agreement with Uber provides for the integration of our aerial ridesharing service into the Uber app across global markets. We believe this will provide a best-in-class platform to funnel demand to our aerial ridesharing service, while allowing us to reduce customer acquisition costs in the early years of commercial operations. Uber will also be reciprocally integrated into any future Joby Aviation mobile application on a non-exclusive basis to service the ground-based component of multi-modal journeys booked by customers through our application. The goal of this mutual integration is to ensure passengers can access a multi-modal travel experience, seamlessly transitioning from ground-to-air-to-ground with unified, one-click booking.
Delta Air Lines, Inc.
In October 2022, we entered into a collaboration agreement with Delta Air Lines, Inc. (“Delta”) to develop a long-term strategic relationship for a premium airport transportation service that we plan to offer to Delta passengers in select markets through the Delta booking platform. At the same time, Delta invested $60 million through a purchase of our common stock and also received warrants which, if exercised, could expand their total investment to $200 million. We believe that our relationship with Delta, in addition to providing additional capital, will be another important method of customer acquisition when we launch our commercial passenger service, and will also provide opportunities to leverage Delta’s expertise in providing a seamless passenger experience and expertise in building out infrastructure at key airports.
SK Telecom
In June 2023, SK Telecom, South Korea’s leading telecommunications conglomerate (“SKT”), invested $100 million in Joby. As one of the largest and most innovative companies in Asia, SKT operates many complementary lines of business including telecom data, navigation systems, EV charging network and operations, rideshare and real estate assets. In 2024, Joby participated alongside SKT in Korea’s K-UAM Grand Challenge, a phased demonstration program designed to foster the adoption of aerial ridesharing in Korea, successfully completing the work we set out to do in 2023.
U.S. Air Force
In December 2020, we became, to our knowledge, the first company to receive airworthiness approval for an eVTOL aircraft from the USAF, and in the first quarter of 2021 we officially began on-base operations under contract pursuant to the USAF’s Agility Prime program. Our multi-year relationship with the USAF and other U.S. Government agencies has provided us with a compelling opportunity to more thoroughly understand the operational capabilities and maintenance profiles of our aircraft in advance of commercial launch. By operating our aircraft on U.S. military installations we have gained valuable insight that will result in a more reliable service at launch. In 2023, we marked our first delivery to a customer by delivering and flying the first eVTOL aircraft at Edwards Air Force base as part of our contract with the DOD, and in January 2025, we delivered our second aircraft under this contract. The Agility Prime program also supported our June 2024 flight of our hybrid hydrogen-electric demonstrator. As government programs continue to focus on early-stage, emerging technologies, we anticipate some federal program investment in eVTOLs may be reduced, and we do not expect the USAF to fully exercise the remaining options under our existing contract. However, having completed initial testing and capability demonstration programs with multiple branches of the U.S. military, we believe we are well positioned to participate in future initiatives focusing on advancements in hybrid and autonomous technologies as described below.
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Future Market Opportunities
We believe there are opportunities to address markets that are adjacent to our core mobility business, including delivery and logistics as well as emergency services. We may make select investments to address these market adjacencies over time.
We also believe that developments in advanced flight controls, battery technologies and alternative methods of energy storage could have a meaningful impact on our core mobility business. Advanced flight controls, including additional “pilot assist” features and, in time, fully-autonomous flight, may allow us to drive-down cost and lower customer pricing as well as relieve operational constraints to scaling our service. Improvements in battery technology or alternative methods of energy storage may allow us to increase the range, speed and/or payload of our vehicles, dramatically expanding the range of trips and use-cases we can serve.
We are investing, and will continue to invest, strategically in these areas to ensure that we are well-positioned to capture the benefits offered by these new developments. From time to time, we may seek to partner with or acquire, when appropriate, companies that have products, personnel, and technologies that complement our strategic direction. For example, we believe that other future technologies, such as hydrogen fuel cells or solid-state batteries, have the potential to play an important role in decarbonizing flight in the longer term and may seek to invest in or develop these opportunities as they arise. In 2021 we acquired H2FLY, which, in 2023, accomplished the world’s first piloted flight of a liquid hydrogen-powered electric aircraft. In 2024, using a fuel cell system designed and built by H2FLY, we successfully flew a hydrogen-electric demonstrator based off of our current aircraft design more than 500 miles. Additionally, in 2024 we acquired certain assets of the autonomy division of Xwing Inc., and the acquired technology was subsequently used to fly a fully-autonomous Cessna Caravan over 3,900 miles as part of the U.S. Air Force’s Agile Flag 24-3 exercise.
Intellectual Property
Our success depends in part upon our ability to protect our core technology and intellectual property. To establish and protect our proprietary rights, we rely on a combination of intellectual property rights (e.g., patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets, including know-how and expertise) and contracts (e.g., license agreements, confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements with third parties, employee and contractor disclosure and invention assignment agreements, and other similar contractual rights).
As of January 17, 2025, we have over 270 issued or allowed patents (of which over 200 are U.S. filings) and over 215 pending patent applications (of which over 120 are U.S. filings). The patent portfolio is primarily related to eVTOL vehicle technology and UAM/aerial rideshare technology. We regularly file patent applications and from time to time acquire patents from third parties.
Our patent filings include over 135 issued or allowed patents and over 145 pending patent applications relating to our aircraft, its architecture, powertrain, acoustics, energy storage and distribution systems, flight control system and system resiliency, as well as certain additional aircraft configurations and technologies. Additionally, we have over 130 issued or allowed patents and over 65 pending patent applications related to aerial rideshare technology, such as fleet and infrastructure utilization, routing, air traffic coordination, rideshare software applications, vertiport infrastructure, and ancillary computer technologies.
Our Commitment to having a Positive Impact
By developing an efficient, all-electric aircraft with no operating emissions, a low noise footprint and multiple redundancies designed to enhance safety, we believe we can help reduce congestion in cities while also reducing the transportation sector’s environmental impact.
We are building a dedicated workforce to achieve this goal while aiming to adhere to best practices in risk assessment, mitigation and corporate governance. Corporate responsibility topics such as environmental impact, building a sustainable workforce and strong governance practices are overseen by the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee and the Compensation Committee of our Board of Directors in addition to our management team.
This work is organized into three pillars, which, in turn, contain focus areas for our attention and action:
• Environmental - We aim to be stewards of the natural environment by minimizing the impact of our own operations and developing and producing innovative aircraft that reduce resource use and energy consumption compared to traditional aviation and other modes of transportation. We believe that this focus allows us to recognize cost savings in our operations while positively impacting the communities in which we operate.
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• Social - We believe that, providing high quality jobs that are supportive of and welcoming to all can minimize employee turnover and have a positive impact on the communities in which our operations are located. We underpin all of these activities with a core focus on health and safety.
• Governance - We maintain our commitment to ethical business conduct, integrity, and corporate responsibility by integrating strong governance and enterprise risk management oversight across all aspects of our business.
Our Focus on Safety and Sustainable Manufacturing
With safety as a core value, we emphasize the importance of safety in everything that we do. This includes adherence to safety rules, best practices, and compliance. Every employee is trained in the safety policies and procedures that are relevant to their role, and we encourage all employees to participate in company-wide safety initiatives, including participating in our non-punitive safety reporting program to identify hazards and reduce risks. Employees are reminded that everyone is part of the safety team and we conduct regular audits with the goal of ensuring proper safety procedures are being used and that hazard identification and risk assessment information is being collected and acted on in a timely and appropriate manner.
Our engineering and design standards are designed with the goal of operating in a safe, efficient, sustainable and compliant manner, and encourage us to be leaders in pursuing environmentally friendly production practices. Our Sustainability and Environmental Health and Safety teams work closely with our Facilities team and operating units to track energy consumption and material inputs and outputs, to refine our energy efficiency initiatives and provide proper handling and disposal of our materials. As our U.S.-based manufacturing footprint grows, we strive to source renewable electricity for all primary facilities in the most cost effective manner, further reducing our manufacturing impact. In 2023, we also expanded two recycling programs for the manufacturing processes. As our testing and production operations have scaled, we have continued to recycle our aircraft batteries, and any carbon fiber scraps are recycled into inputs for high strength steel. These programs allow us to streamline our manufacturing lines, reduce hazardous waste processing costs and reduce our impact.
Social and Human Capital
To achieve our goal of enabling the world to connect faster and more easily with the people and places that matter most, we will need to attract and retain employees with a diverse set of skills and perspectives as we grow our business. Many of our employees are located in highly competitive labor markets. In addition to competitive cash and equity compensation, offering employees a compelling vision and an opportunity to positively impact their communities is a key part of our strategy to grow our workforce. Additionally, we invest in the communities where we operate, with programs enabling accessibility, education and training. This has multiple benefits including broadening the reach of new technologies such as electric aviation, improving awareness and acceptance to operate in communities, extending opportunities to underserved communities, and developing our future workforce. For example, we are working with Aviation High School in New York City to prepare the next generation of aircraft maintenance technicians and aerospace leaders for career opportunities created by the electric age of flight. We also operate a manufacturing apprentice program in our Marina, California location that provides paid training opportunities for individuals with no prior experience to prepare them for fulfilling careers in aerospace manufacturing.
We work diligently to create a work environment that is welcoming for all. We provide equal opportunities for growth, success, promotion, learning and development. We encourage employee engagement through a variety of mechanisms including providing opportunities such as seminars and panel discussions, for our employees to gather and discuss topics that are important to them and to provide feedback on how we can better support their growth and career development We are focused on building support across all teams and individuals, ensuring everyone has a voice, and treats each other with respect.
Our annual employee engagement survey captures team member feedback. The measurement model is a combination of vendor content and in-house-developed content led by our Industrial/Organizational Psychologists on the Talent Development & Analytics team. For 2024, we achieved a response rate of 82% and the survey included 49 items capturing 12 key areas of the employee experience.
As of January 31, 2025, we had 2,029 employees. None of our employees are represented by a labor union. We believe we have good relationships with our employees and have not experienced any interruptions of operations due to labor disagreements.
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Competition
We believe that the primary sources of competition for our service are ground-based mobility solutions, other eVTOL developers/operators and local/regional incumbent aircraft charter services.
We believe the primary factors that will drive success in the UAM market include:
• the performance of our eVTOL aircraft relative to both competitive eVTOL aircraft and traditional aircraft;
• the ability to certify the aircraft and begin service operations in a timely manner;
• the ability to manufacture efficiently at scale;
• the ability to scale the service adequately to drive down end-user pricing;
• the ability to capture first-mover advantage, if any;
• the ability to offer services and routes that provide adequate value proposition for passengers;
• the ability to develop or otherwise capture the benefits of next generation technologies; and
• the ability to deliver products and services to a high-level of quality, reliability and safety.
While there are differentiated approaches to vehicle designs and business models, we believe that our aircraft and vertically-integrated approach offer the greatest long-term prospects to certify and produce the best aircraft to serve our customers and, in turn, to monetize the full value chain from development through operations.
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