Two California companies at the front of the global race to bring battery-powered air taxis to the public are trying to trip each other up in court.
While Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation are based within an hour of each other in Northern California, they are bitter rivals, each hoping their own small electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft will rule the skies like Ubers shuttling people over cities.
Over the last year, the companies have been entangled in a mix of suits and countersuits, taking jabs at each other’s products and progress.
Archer says Joby is hiding its dependence on money and parts from China. Joby alleges Archer stole its technology.
Eric Lentell, chief legal and strategy officer for Archer, said the company is “not worried at all” about the corporate espionage accusations.
At stake is the first-mover advantage in an electric air taxi market that could eventually include autonomous aircraft. Morgan Stanley has predicted the industry could be worth $1.5 trillion by 2040.
“It’s very normal for companies to get into this tit for tat, especially in a new industry,” said Sergio Cecutta, co-founder of the aerospace consulting firm SMG Consulting and creator of the Advanced Air Mobility Reality Index.
[…]
Joby filed a suit in November, alleging corporate espionage against Archer and George Kivork, a former Joby employee who left to work for Archer. It accused Kivork of stealing technical information and communications with stakeholders from Joby and providing them to its competitor.
“By virtue of his position with Joby, Kivork had access to confidential and proprietary information,” the complaint said. “Archer brazenly used that stolen information.”
Both Archer and Kivork filed motions to dismiss the claims in January.
In March, Archer filed a lawsuit accusing Joby of defrauding the government by concealing close ties to China and misclassifying aircraft parts of Chinese origin.
Last month, in response to a complaint filed on behalf of Archer, the International Trade Commission opened an investigation into Joby and its relationship with China to determine whether it has violated tariff or patent law. The results of that investigation could affect Joby’s entrance into the U.S. market, Cecutta said.
Joby filed to dismiss the lawsuit in April, saying in court documents that “Joby has disclosed its China-based subsidiary in every annual report filed with the SEC since Joby became publicly traded.”
In Archer’s motion to dismiss the claims against Kivork and the company for corporate espionage, Archer wrote that Kivork “decided to accept a job with Joby’s more innovative competitor” and that the accusations were “an anti-competitive gambit by Joby to slow down a more successful competitor.”
In Joby’s motion to dismiss Archer’s counterclaims months later, Joby wrote that Archer was “attempting to recapture the narrative” and that its claims “do not deny that Joby is ahead.”
Joby’s court filing said Archer’s complaint was “long on innuendo, but short on factual allegations supporting cognizable legal theories.”
That story is from May 20, I found it after coming across this paywalled Verge story about all the lawsuits and doing some googling. CNBC had a story a few days after this one with some related details.
Meanwhile, certification timelines have been perpetually pushed back as the buildout for flying cars, which promise to curb emissions and traffic, takes longer to pan out in the U.S.
President Donald Trump’s plans to accelerate development through an eVTOL Integration Pilot Program are giving the sector much-needed validation, but heated battles unfolding in the courtroom threaten to sidetrack those dreams and further sour investor appetite.
“If the industry continues to sue each other, then it’s going to drag out certification timelines and increase costs,” warned Mike Hirschberg, principal at aviation advisory firm H2 Advisors.
[…]
The road to flying cars has been riddled with setbacks — and some bankruptcies.
One of the most recent certification hurdles came in 2024. Germany-based Volocopter scrapped plans to bring air taxis to the Paris Olympics after failing to obtain certification for its engines.
Other air taxi makers have faced worse fates.
German electric jet maker Lilium shut down operations last year after a last-minute emergency package collapsed. At its height, the company raised over a billion, going public through a SPAC merger during the 2021 frenzy.
Andrew Beebe, a partner at Obvious Ventures and investor in Lilium, said the capital-intensive nature of the business makes it difficult for eVTOL companies to succeed without the right expertise.
Vertical was once on the brink of collapse. Now, the company is in the middle of a massive turnaround.
In 2021, as Vertical’s cash reserves dwindled, hedge fund manager Jason Mudrick swooped in with a funding package. By 2024, his firm, Mudrick Capital, became the majority stakeholder in the air taxi maker through a debt restructuring deal and later forced out its founder.
Since then, Vertical revamped, stepped-up marketing, and changed its management team. This April, the company secured a funding package worth up to $850 million.
Lawsuits — like the ones unfolding between Vertical, Archer and Joby — also aren’t new for the industry.
In 2023, Archer settled intellectual property disputes with Boeing and its air taxi unit Wisk, and signed an agreement to collaborate on autonomous tech, and invested in the air taxi maker.
There’s a lot in there about where the various American companies are with the technology and the certification process, so read the rest. More recently, there was a ruling in one of the lawsuits.
A recent court ruling brought bad news for both companies, but Joby was still the clear winner (again). Here’s what happened and how it might affect both companies’ stocks.
It all started in November, when Joby filed a lawsuit against Archer and George Kivork, a former Joby employee who went to work for Archer. Joby alleged that Kivork brought stolen trade secrets to Archer and that Archer accidentally gave the game away when it approached a real estate developer who was one of Joby’s strategic partners and revealed confidential details about the partner’s exclusive agreement with Joby.
Archer vigorously denied the claims, and in March it hit Joby with a countersuit, alleging in part that Joby fraudulently imported components sourced from China, which were deliberately misclassified as other goods like socks to avoid U.S. tariffs and other oversight. The reference to socks had caused the countersuit to become known in aviation industry circles as “Sockgate.”
Joby, of course, denied all of the counterclaims, and on June 5 a judge finally weighed in.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen of the Northern District of California, who is hearing the case, dealt setbacks to both sides in her June 5 order.
She threw out several portions of Joby’s suit, dismissing claims that pertained to trade secrets involving commercial strategy, regulatory planning, infrastructure planning, and technical aircraft information. Her reasoning was that Joby had not sufficiently explained how these materials had been misappropriated. She similarly dismissed a claim that Archer had induced Kivork to breach his agreement with Joby. However, Joby can amend these claims and resubmit them by June 22, which Joby plans to do.
In good news for Joby, Van Keulen ruled that it had plausibly alleged Archer’s misappropriation of confidential information related to the real estate developer’s partnership. This was the core of Joby’s suit against Archer, and the fact that it can move forward is good news for the company.
Even better for Joby, the judge dismissed all of Archer’s counterclaims for fraud and import misclassification but gave Archer until June 29 to potentially refile an amended complaint. Archer’s management has said it intends to do so.
All this is happening as air taxis are being tested and there’s an expectation that these things will be ready to go in time for the 2028 Olympics. I personally don’t care about who’s claiming what in court. What I care about is that if we’re going to have these things – and I will admit, there’s a lot to like about what they’re doing – we have them in a robust and regulated market where safety is paramount and no one provider dominates. In the meantime, it would be nice if Joby and Archer could settle their differences and spend less time in the courtroom.