Our Story

Day and night, a small team of seven engineers worked out of “The Barn,” our workshop in the mountains above Santa Cruz. We explored the frontiers of technologies like electric motors, flight software, and lithium-ion batteries — engineering almost every component from the ground up.

Beginning in 2012, Joby was selected to collaborate with NASA on several groundbreaking electric flight projects, including the X-57 and LEAPTech.

After many years of subscale testing and analysis, we arrived at our current configuration and flew this subscale technology demonstrator for the first time.

Our first full-scale demonstrator took to the skies in 2017.

In 2019, our pre-production prototype began a rigorous flight testing program.

As well as becoming a strategic investor in Joby, Toyota has deployed dozens of engineers to work shoulder-to-shoulder with our team, lending their expertise on factory layout, manufacturing process development and high-volume production.

Joby became the first eVTOL company to receive airworthiness approval from the U.S Air Force in December 2020. Flying our aircraft on-base and having access to government testing facilities provides an opportunity to develop our operational capabilities in advance of commercial launch.

We deepened our partnership with Uber, agreeing to integrate our aerial ridesharing service into the Uber app, and vice versa, across all U.S. launch markets. Uber increased their investment in Joby and we acquired the Elevate division, bringing their software tools and commercial launch expertise in house.

In 2020, we signed our Stage 4 “G-1” certification basis with the FAA, having received an initial Stage 2 G-1 from the agency in 2019. This document lays out a clear path to certifying our aircraft for commercial flights.

During the year that Joby listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE:JOBY), our pre-production prototype flew more than 5,300 miles, including a flight of 154.6 miles on a single charge.

We also built a second pre-production prototype, completed our first FAA production conformity inspection and officially began our journey to become the first certified eVTOL airline.

We received our Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate, which allows Joby to operate a commercial air taxi service.

​​In the years ahead, we’ll be focusing on three key goals: certifying our aircraft, scaling our manufacturing, and preparing for operations.