Signals Inbox·August 22, 2026·Next-Gen Aviation

Joby vs. Archer: who is ahead now?

Joby is ahead in the core air-taxi race today, with the stronger certification position, more mature flight program and a much more complete route to paying passengers. Archer is still close, and its larger order book, bigger factory ambition and rapid expansion into autonomous aerospace give it a very credible way to change the answer.

Q1Why do people keep comparing Joby and Archer?

Joby and Archer are still the clearest head-to-head race in U.S. electric air taxis because they are trying to put very similar four-passenger eVTOL aircraft into many of the same cities, under the same FAA rules, on roughly the same commercialization timeline.

Both companies are public, heavily funded and already flying full-scale piloted aircraft. Both want airport and city-to-city routes. Both have automotive manufacturing partners. Both are preparing early passenger operations in the U.S. and the Middle East, while building relationships with major airlines.

Their strategies have started to separate, though. Joby increasingly wants to control the whole passenger journey: aircraft, operations, terminals, booking and eventually the ride itself. Its acquisition of Blade's passenger business pushed it further in that direction.

Archer has historically put more emphasis on selling Midnight aircraft to operators and building production capacity around those orders. Lately it has widened its ambitions much further through autonomous aircraft, defense, aviation AI and its planned acquisition of Boeing's Wisk Aero, Insitu and SkyGrid businesses.

So the Joby versus Archer comparison still works, but we need to be precise about the race. For commercial electric air taxis, they remain direct rivals. At the company level, Archer is starting to become something broader.

Q2Why is it still difficult to say whether Joby or Archer is winning?

Joby currently leads on several things that have to happen before a real air-taxi business can exist, while Archer leads on several things that become extremely valuable once certification and production are unlocked.

Joby is further into the final FAA certification work with a conforming aircraft already flying. It also has a larger current aircraft pipeline, more cash, existing aviation passengers through Blade and a particularly strong launch setup in Dubai.

Archer has built the larger aircraft-sales pipeline and the more aggressive long-term manufacturing plan. Its indicative order book exceeds $6 billion, with customers including United Airlines, Soracle in Japan and Korean Air. Stellantis is helping Archer prepare a Georgia factory designed around much higher production volumes than Joby currently targets.

Then there is Archer's recent expansion beyond Midnight. If the Boeing transaction closes, Archer gains Wisk's autonomous eVTOL program, SkyGrid's airspace software and Insitu, a profitable unmanned-aircraft company that Archer says generates more than $200 million in annual revenue.

That gives us two different scoreboards. Today, certification and launch readiness deserve the heaviest weight because they remain the main gates to commercial eVTOL service. Manufacturing scale and order volume become more decisive later.

Using that weighting, Joby is ahead for now.

Q3Who is closer to FAA certification, Joby or Archer?

Joby appears closer to the aircraft-level FAA testing that will decide this race, which gives it the most important current advantage over Archer.

Archer has made genuine regulatory progress. The FAA has accepted 100% of Midnight's Means of Compliance, and Archer became the first eVTOL company to close Phase 3 of the FAA's four-phase type-certification process. Those milestones establish how Archer will prove that Midnight meets the required standards and clear the way toward Type Inspection Authorization testing.

Joby is already testing the aircraft built for that next step. Its first FAA-conforming aircraft intended for TIA flew earlier this year. The aircraft was produced to the approved configuration needed for the certification campaign, and Joby is preparing for FAA pilots to conduct for-credit testing.

Joby's latest quarterly update also reported its strongest progress yet in the fifth and final stage of its certification process. That follows an earlier FAA SR3 audit, which checked whether Joby's test data and methods were ready for the final certification work.

The distinction is fairly simple. Archer has done more of the work required to reach aircraft-level TIA testing than almost anyone else in the sector. Joby has already put a TIA conforming aircraft in the air.

Certification programs can still move unpredictably, and a serious test finding could change the order quickly. Based on what the companies have disclosed today, Joby has the lead.

Q4Does Joby's higher revenue mean it is already winning commercially?

No. Joby's revenue is currently much higher than Archer's, but almost all of the gap comes from businesses around the air taxi rather than from selling electric-air-taxi flights.

Joby generated $38.6 million of revenue in its latest quarter. Archer generated $5.0 million, making Joby's reported revenue about 7.7 times larger.

The composition is more revealing than the ratio. Joby said Blade generated $36.2 million during the quarter. That means roughly 94% of Joby's revenue came from the passenger-aviation business it acquired, mainly helicopter and fixed-wing services. Archer said its $5 million came from expanded operations at Hawthorne Airport in Los Angeles.

Neither company is currently generating meaningful revenue from commercial eVTOL passenger operations.

This will become an even bigger problem for anyone comparing the companies through revenue alone. Joby has agreed to acquire Resonant Sciences, which generated more than $100 million of trailing-12-month revenue. Archer's planned Boeing deal includes Insitu, which Archer says generates more than $200 million annually.

Both companies could therefore report sharply higher revenue while their core electric air taxis remain uncertified.

For now, we treat revenue as evidence that each company is building a broader aviation business. It tells us very little about who has won the eVTOL market.

Latest reported revenue comparison

Q5Which aircraft has been proven more convincingly in real flight?

Joby currently has the deeper body of flight evidence, although Archer has moved much closer over the past year.

Joby said its electric aircraft flew more than 9,000 miles during 2025. Its testing has included repeated vertical takeoffs, transition into wing-borne flight, cruise and vertical landings with several pilots. More recently, Joby has flown point-to-point around San Francisco and New York, operated in Dubai and begun flying the conforming aircraft built for its TIA campaign.

Archer's Midnight has also progressed well beyond demonstration flights. The company has flown roughly 55 miles in 31 minutes, reached 10,000 feet and approached 150 mph. More recently, Midnight completed a piloted round trip between Salinas Municipal Airport and Monterey Regional Airport, with each leg taking about nine minutes. Archer coordinated that flight with the FAA as preparation for its U.S. eVTOL Integration Pilot Program operations.

Some of the companies' headline flights test different things, so distance records alone are a poor comparison. A long conventional runway departure can test endurance without proving the full vertical air-taxi mission. Repeated transition flights tell us something different. Conforming-aircraft flights add another level because they start connecting performance with the aircraft configuration that regulators will inspect.

Looking across those tests rather than picking one record, Joby has accumulated more evidence across the full mission and has now moved that evidence into its conforming-aircraft program.

Archer's recent city-to-city flights show that the gap is shrinking. We would still give Joby the edge today.

Q6Who is more likely to carry passengers first, Joby or Archer?

Joby has a narrow lead in the race to carry real passengers, mainly because its launch markets are further assembled around the aircraft.

Joby currently expects its first U.S. eIPP flights in Texas in the coming weeks and is targeting first passengers this year. The federal pilot program allows selected companies and local partners to begin limited operations before full type certification, creating an important bridge between flight testing and ordinary commercial service.

Dubai gives Joby another route. The company has a six-year exclusive agreement with Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority, has already completed the UAE's first piloted point-to-point electric air-taxi flight and has identified vertiport locations at Dubai International Airport, Dubai Mall, Atlantis The Royal and the American University of Dubai.

Archer has found a credible shortcut of its own in the UAE. The country's General Civil Aviation Authority placed Midnight on a Restricted Type Certificate pathway designed to support limited initial commercial operations. Archer has flown Midnight in the UAE and is also preparing U.S. eIPP operations.

Its latest California city-to-city flight was useful evidence here because Archer is now practicing the kind of airport-to-airport operation that customers could actually use.

The gap is small enough that a regulatory approval could flip this section within a quarter. Joby's current advantage comes from having more of the surrounding launch system already in place.

Q7Who has stronger customer demand: Joby or Archer?

Archer is clearly ahead on aircraft demand, with a much larger disclosed pipeline of customers willing to contemplate buying Midnights.

Archer's indicative order book exceeds $6 billion. Future Flight Global alone has discussed buying up to 116 aircraft worth as much as $580 million. Soracle, the Japan Airlines and Sumitomo venture, has rights to place orders for up to 100 aircraft. Korean Air's agreement also contemplates as many as 100 Midnights.

United is still Archer's most useful proof point. It paid a $10 million pre-delivery deposit covering the first 100 aircraft under its earlier agreement. The dollar amount is small beside the headline value of the orders, but cash is stronger evidence than a memorandum of understanding.

We still need to haircut the $6 billion figure heavily. Archer describes it as an indicative order book, and many of the agreements depend on future definitive contracts, certification milestones, pre-delivery payments or other conditions. It should never be read like an Airbus or Boeing backlog.

Joby disclosed more than $1 billion of potential aircraft and service sales during 2025. That includes planned deals such as up to $250 million of aircraft and services in Kazakhstan. Those commitments also carry conditions.

The difference partly reflects strategy. Archer has spent years actively building an aircraft-sales book. Joby has devoted more effort to creating its own passenger network.

Even after adjusting for that difference, Archer has produced much more evidence that airlines and aviation operators want to buy the aircraft itself. This is one of Archer's clearest wins.

Q8Who has the better route to paying passengers?

Joby has the better passenger-distribution system today because it can build on customers, terminals and booking channels that already exist.

Blade served more than 90,000 passengers in 2025 and brought Joby a network of lounges, heliports and existing airport routes in New York and Southern Europe. Joby then demonstrated its electric aircraft on several New York routes already familiar to those Blade customers, including flights between JFK and Manhattan heliports.

That is a stronger commercialization test than announcing a theoretical city map. Joby can observe where people already pay hundreds of dollars to avoid traffic, how often those routes are used and which terminals customers prefer.

Uber adds another layer. Blade flights are being integrated into Uber, and Joby has shown how future "Uber Air powered by Joby" journeys could combine ground and air transport in one booking flow. Delta invested in Joby and has been working with the company on airport transportation for airline passengers. Virgin Atlantic has also finalized a UK partnership.

Archer has several serious channels of its own. United brings airline distribution and has put money behind the relationship. LA28 gives Archer a high-profile operating platform around the Los Angeles Olympics. Its agreements in Japan, Korea and the UAE could also place aircraft with established aviation operators.

We put Joby ahead because its strongest relationships are already connected to real passenger behavior. Blade brought paying flyers, Uber brings a mass-market booking layer, and Dubai brings exclusive operating access. Those pieces fit together unusually well.

Q9Can Archer's factory advantage overwhelm Joby's current production lead?

Archer has the bigger manufacturing ambition, while Joby currently gives us more concrete evidence of aircraft moving through production.

Joby's latest update says five aircraft are flying and another 12 are in production. The company has also said composite production is running at more than 2.5 times its previous level, while conforming propeller-blade production has started in Ohio.

Its near-term manufacturing target remains relatively modest: four aircraft per month in 2027. Toyota's role has become deeper lately. After years of engineering cooperation and investment, Joby and Toyota created a joint venture focused specifically on manufacturing Joby's S4-series aircraft.

Archer is designing for a much larger endpoint. Its Georgia factory was built with Stellantis and is intended to support production of up to 650 Midnights annually. Stellantis previously committed arrangements worth up to roughly $400 million toward manufacturing labor and capital expenditure through 2030.

A 650-aircraft annual rate would be more than 13 times Joby's published four-per-month target. If Archer gets anywhere close to that output, manufacturing becomes a major competitive weapon.

Today we have much better visibility into Joby's actual aircraft pipeline than into Archer's current monthly output. Archer's recent disclosures emphasize its factory, testing and production activity without providing a fresh aircraft count comparable with Joby's five flying and 12 in production.

That leaves us with a split verdict: Joby leads on demonstrated output, Archer on designed capacity. At this stage of the market, we give demonstrated output more weight.

Manufacturing comparison today

Q10What is the hardest problem in eVTOL now, and who is solving it better?

Certification plus repeatable operations is currently the bottleneck in eVTOL, and Joby has made more progress against that bottleneck than Archer.

The technology question has changed. Both companies have piloted aircraft that can take off vertically, transition, cruise at useful speeds and cover meaningful distances. Battery-powered flight itself no longer separates them as sharply as it once did.

The difficult part now is turning one working aircraft into a certifiable product that can be manufactured repeatedly, maintained, piloted, routed through busy airspace and used by paying passengers.

That changes how we should interpret other numbers. Archer's large order book becomes much more valuable after Midnight can be delivered. Its Georgia factory becomes much more valuable once that certified design can be reproduced at volume. Joby's Blade passenger base becomes much more valuable once those customers can actually move onto Joby aircraft.

As seen above, Joby already has its first TIA conforming aircraft flying. Its latest update also showed the company's strongest progress yet in the final FAA certification stage, while its early U.S. operations and Dubai preparations are moving forward in parallel.

Archer has closed Phase 3 with the FAA and is preparing the final phase, so this is hardly a comfortable Joby lead. But when we weight the constraint that is holding back the whole market today, Joby is further through it.

Q11Which company has more financial firepower?

Joby currently has the stronger balance-sheet cushion, with roughly $700 million more cash and short-term investments than Archer.

Joby reported about $2.3 billion of cash and short-term investments at the end of its latest quarter. Archer reported $1.56 billion. Using the more precise reported figures, Joby's liquidity advantage is around $700 million, or roughly 45%.

Both companies are spending aggressively. Archer used $156.4 million of cash in operating activities during its latest quarter, alongside $37.1 million of property and equipment purchases and $25 million for its Hawthorne Airport fixed-base-operator acquisition. Joby expects to use another $385 million to $415 million of cash and short-term investments during the second half of the year as certification and commercialization continue.

Acquisitions will also consume capital. Joby's Resonant Sciences deal is worth about $500 million, with approximately $450 million expected in cash. Archer's planned Boeing transaction will materially reshape its business and capital structure once the detailed economics flow through.

So neither company has reached the stage where cash stops being strategic. Certification delays, factory ramps and new aircraft programs can absorb enormous amounts of capital before they generate steady returns.

Joby's larger cushion gives it more room for mistakes. In aviation, that is a real advantage.

Q12Is Archer becoming a different kind of company from Joby?

Yes. Archer is currently moving much faster toward becoming a diversified aerospace and defense company, while Joby still keeps commercial air taxis much closer to the center of the business.

The biggest change is Archer's planned acquisition of Boeing's Wisk Aero, Insitu and SkyGrid. Wisk brings autonomous eVTOL development, SkyGrid adds airspace software, and Insitu brings an established unmanned-aircraft business operating across 35 countries. Archer says Insitu alone contributes more than $200 million of annual revenue.

Archer has also unveiled Halo and Thunder with Anduril, two versions of a hybrid autonomous VTOL platform aimed at commercial and defense missions. Its ZEE project adds an aviation-focused AI model designed to work with aircraft, air-traffic and environmental data.

Those projects increasingly share a common idea: Archer wants to own technologies across autonomous aircraft, propulsion, software and defense rather than depend entirely on Midnight becoming a mass-market air taxi.

Joby is broadening as well. Its planned acquisition of Resonant Sciences adds more than $100 million of trailing-12-month revenue, established U.S. defense programs, classified capabilities and a profitable operating business. Joby also has its Superpilot autonomy system and a turbine-electric aircraft that has already flown.

The organizational difference is revealing. Joby says Resonant will become a dedicated defense unit so its commercial team can stay focused on certifying, manufacturing and launching the air taxi. Archer presents its recent moves as parts of a much broader aerospace platform.

That makes Archer more diversified and potentially less dependent on the timing of commercial eVTOL adoption. It also means that future revenue comparisons between the two companies will become less useful.

Q13Which company has the more defensible air-taxi business if both succeed?

Joby has the stronger long-term setup for controlling the economics of an air-taxi network, although its approach is more complicated and capital intensive.

The advantage comes from how many parts of the customer journey Joby is assembling. It develops the aircraft, plans to operate flights, owns Blade's passenger business, has access to existing terminals, works with Uber on booking and ground transport, and has airline relationships that can feed passengers into airport routes.

That can create a useful feedback loop. The operator sees which routes have demand, which times fill up, how aircraft actually perform, where maintenance becomes expensive and how passengers behave. Those lessons can influence fleet placement, pricing, aircraft design and the next routes added.

Archer's model has historically been friendlier to scale through third-party operators. Selling Midnights to United, Korean Air, Soracle and other partners allows those companies to supply local customers, infrastructure and operating expertise. Archer can concentrate more heavily on aircraft, manufacturing and technology.

There is no free advantage here. Joby's vertical integration gives it more control and more operational burden. Archer can potentially scale faster through partners while surrendering some of the economics and customer data to those partners.

We prefer Joby's position if air taxis eventually behave like a transportation network where route density, utilization and passenger access drive returns. Archer's model becomes more attractive if the market behaves like conventional aerospace and most of the value sits in selling large numbers of aircraft.

Right now, the evidence points slightly toward Joby's model because it is already using Blade to learn from real vertical-aviation customers before the electric aircraft enters service.

Q14What would Archer need to do to overtake Joby?

Archer could overtake Joby quite quickly if it closes the certification gap and starts proving that its manufacturing and order advantages are converting into aircraft that customers can actually use.

The first thing we would watch is Midnight entering aircraft-level TIA work and moving through it cleanly. That would weaken Joby's biggest current advantage.

Second, Archer needs to show what its Georgia factory can actually produce. A sustained monthly output materially above Joby's would change the manufacturing score faster than another capacity announcement.

Third, conversion of the order book matters more now than adding another headline customer. We would look for larger non-refundable pre-delivery payments, firm purchase contracts, deliveries and repeat commitments from operators such as United, Soracle or Korean Air.

Archer also has a separate way to change the comparison. If the Boeing transaction closes and Insitu, Wisk and SkyGrid integrate well, Archer could become the stronger aerospace company even while Joby remains ahead in electric air taxis. That is a perfectly plausible outcome.

Joby has its own proof points coming. We want to see FAA for-credit testing progress without a major redesign, actual passengers moving through early operations, and the current aircraft pipeline turning into a repeatable manufacturing cadence.

The next few quarters should produce much harder evidence than the previous few years of eVTOL announcements.

Q15Who is winning Joby vs. Archer right now?

Joby is winning the core air-taxi race today, and the lead is real enough that we would choose Joby if forced to pick one company now, although Archer remains close enough to reverse it.

Three areas drive that verdict.

Certification comes first. Joby has moved into conforming-aircraft flight testing for TIA and continues to report progress through the FAA's final stage. Archer has achieved important earlier milestones and closed Phase 3, but it still needs to close the gap in aircraft-level certification work.

Commercial readiness comes next. Joby already owns an aviation passenger business, has access to Blade's terminals and customers, is building distribution through Uber and airlines, and has exclusive air-taxi operating rights in Dubai. Archer's commercial network is credible, particularly through United, LA28 and the UAE, but fewer of those pieces are connected to an existing passenger system.

Manufacturing is the area where Archer can hit back hardest. Its Stellantis-backed factory has a far higher theoretical ceiling, and its indicative aircraft orders are several times larger than Joby's disclosed potential aircraft and service sales. Those advantages could become decisive once certification is less of a constraint.

Joby's latest disclosed fleet also gives that lead some physical substance: five aircraft flying and another 12 in production. Combined with roughly $700 million more liquidity than Archer, that is enough tangible capacity to support the regulatory and early-operating lead rather than relying only on a better certification chart.

Archer deserves a stronger judgment in one separate race. It is currently building the broader aerospace platform. Wisk, Insitu, SkyGrid, Anduril, Halo, Thunder and ZEE could eventually create a company whose value extends far beyond Midnight.

But the question here is who is ahead in electric air taxis.

Today, that is Joby.

Joby vs. Archer: current scorecard