Ever wondered if flying Ubers will crash your dreams before they lift off?
Joby Aviation’s electric aviation push reeks of that familiar Silicon Valley bravado. Founded back in 2009 by JoeBen Bevirt — yeah, that’s his name — when even Tesla was a quirky sideshow. Now they’re hawking eVTOLs, those electric vertical take-off darlings promising to zap urban gridlock. But here’s the kicker: no supply chain existed. Zip. So they iterated like mad, ‘design, build, test’ on steroids.
Jon Wagner, ex-Tesla battery whiz, spills the beans in an IEEE Spectrum chat. He oversaw their direct-drive motor shift. Slow-spinning props for quiet rides, massive torque, redundancy baked in — two stators, separate batteries, the works.
“Essentially, when we talk about the innovation we bring, it’s typically not invention, it’s integration. We typically pick solutions that the world knows about—there’s very little here that’s PhD thesis work. It’s integration work.”
Integration. Not invention. Cute.
Why Does Joby Aviation Insist on Building Everything In-House?
Vertical integration. Joby’s holy grail. Ditch the outsourced mess of cars, where interfaces breed fat, flaws, failures. Wagner nails it: mature chains shine when everyone’s playing by known rules. But aviation? Baby steps. No off-the-shelf eVTOL bits.
So Joby fabs motors themselves. Manufacturability from day one. No supplier roulette. Sounds smart — until you ponder the scale-up nightmare. Tesla vertical-integrated batteries and still choked on Cybertruck ramps. Joby? Aiming for fleets of sky cabs. One dud batch, and FAA certification? Poof.
It’s a bold flex. But flexes break.
Picture this: 1910s aviation pioneers. Wright brothers iterated props in sheds. Glorious failures piled high before safe flight. Joby’s echoing that — rapid cycles, low-cost risks. Wagner: “the more times you go through the process, each time you can identify improvements or problems… if it fails, you just go again.”
Adrenaline junkies, these folks. Yet supply chains aren’t sheds. They’re behemoths. Joby’s betting their integrated thermal wizardry — stitching coils, inverters, cooling sans weight penalties — scales without the ‘mature industry’ crutches. Doubt it.
Is Joby’s Direct-Drive Motor the Quiet Killer It Claims?
Direct-drive. Big diameter rotor hugging the prop. Slow spin slashes noise — key for city hops. Trade-off? Torque monster. Dual coils, inverters, batteries for if-one-fails safety. Thermal glue holds it lean.
Promising. But aviation’s littered with quiet-prop lies. Early jets screamed despite promises. Joby’s props? We’ll see post-certification.
My hot take — unprintable elsewhere: this mirrors DeLorean cars. Flashy integration, hype-drenched PR, then supply woes gutted them. Joby’s PR spins ‘integration’ like holy writ, glossing interface risks they claim to dodge. Reality? FAA’s no pushover. Certification’s a gauntlet; one thermal hiccup in flight tests, and investors bail.
Short version: Hype.
Wagner geeks on details — separated coils, physical inverter gaps, thermal magic. Low weight’s the win. But ‘world-known solutions’? That’s code for off-shelf hacks crammed together. Fine for prototypes. Fleets? Recalls waiting to happen.
And noise. They tout slow props. Great. But wind, rotors, traffic — city skies cacophony. Don’t bet the farm on whisper-quiet taxis dodging your morning coffee spill.
Joby’s FAA queue. Pilots first, autonomy later. Supply chain’s their moat — controlling powertrains top to tail. Yet history screams: over-integration starves flexibility. Boeing’s 737 MAX? Outsourced dreams turned nightmare. Joby flips it — all in-house. Same hubris?
Bold prediction: By 2030, Joby’s either first certified eVTOL fleet or a case study in supply chain overreach. Vertical wins short-term speed; loses on pivots. Watch Toyota’s Prius supply mastery — pragmatic, not purist.
Skeptics like me yawn at the polish. Bevirt’s vision? Transcendent. Execution? Dicey. Electric aviation’s no Roadster joyride; regs crush dreams.
But credit where due. Iterative DNA from Tesla roots shines. Wagner’s motor? Elegant on paper. If they nail manufacturing sans bloat, air taxis inch real.
Will Joby Aviation’s Supply Chain Strategy Actually Scale?
Scale. The buzzkill.
Joby’s house-built motors dodge supplier interfaces — mass savings, reliability bumps. Wagner: “We were able to design highly integrated solutions without taking the manufacturing penalty… we get the mass and performance benefits.”
Theory sings. Practice? Echoes Archer Aviation rivals outsourcing woes — delays, costs. Joby’s edge: control.
Counterpoint. Unmature chain means they’re forging it solo. Batteries? Props? Avionics? All iterated in vacuum. One metal shortage — think lithium now — and production stalls. Vertically integrated unicorns like SpaceX thrive on talent depth. Joby? 2009 startup. Thin ice.
Dry humor alert: If eVTOLs flop, blame the torque, not the torque density.
Unique angle: Parallels Concorde’s supply saga. Integrated dreams, but fuel, noise regs killed it. Joby’s electric sidesteps fuel — but noise, battery density echo. Prediction: Certification by 2025, commercial 2026. Then supply bottlenecks bite.
Wrapping the snark — Joby’s pushing electric aviation boundaries with brains. But boundaries bite back. Investors, buckle up.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is Joby Aviation’s eVTOL powertrain?
Direct-drive electric motor with high-torque, slow-spinning props for quiet, redundant flight via dual stators and batteries.
How does Joby Aviation’s vertical integration work?
They build motors in-house to avoid supplier interface inefficiencies, focusing on integrated, lightweight designs from the start.
Will Joby Aviation air taxis replace helicopters?
Maybe in cities — quieter, electric — but FAA cert and scaling hurdles loom large.
