Joby and Toyota launch joint venture to build air taxis

Joby Aviation and Toyota Motor formed a joint venture on Tuesday to produce Joby’s S4 series air taxis, putting one of the world’s biggest automakers at the center of a push to turn electric vertical takeoff aircraft from a prototype business into a scalable manufacturing operation. The new company, Joby Toyota Aero Manufacturing Preparation Company, is being set up to help Joby secure government approval for commercial eVTOL flights and to move the aircraft closer to repeatable production.

Under the agreement, Joby will own 49% of the venture and Toyota will own the rest. The five-member board will include two directors from Joby and three from Toyota, and Joby will grant the venture exclusive rights to manufacture the S4 Series aircraft while licensing the relevant intellectual property on a royalty-free basis. Joby and Toyota said the alliance will focus on building commercial production capability, improving productivity, quality and cost, and expanding Joby’s manufacturing capacity to support certification and expected demand.

The S4 is a six-rotor electric aircraft that can lift off and land vertically like a helicopter and fly level like an airplane, with space for a pilot and four passengers. Joby had already used the aircraft in a week-long demonstration of point-to-point air taxi flights in New York City earlier this year, a test that underscored how far the company has moved beyond concept renderings and static prototypes. Shares of Joby rose 7% in premarket trading after the announcement, a sign investors saw Toyota’s manufacturing role as a meaningful credibility boost.

Toyota framed the partnership as an extension of its long-standing production expertise, and Joby Chief Executive JoeBen Bevirt said Toyota has been by Joby’s side for nearly a decade. Akio Toyoda said air mobility is a natural extension of Toyota’s mobility philosophy. The key question now is whether Toyota’s assembly-line discipline can help Joby solve the sector’s hardest problem: building enough aircraft safely, cheaply and on schedule to make air taxis commercially viable.