Archer’s Post

Transcript

Welcome back to First Move. And on the UP, you're looking at the take off of a flying taxi by Archer Aviation, which says it can ferry passengers from places like New York JFK Airport to Manhattan in just a matter of minutes. The EV toll aircraft, called Midnight, seats a pilot and four passengers, and it takes off like a helicopter and flies like a plane. As you're seeing on pure electric power, the Midnights range is nearly 160 kilometres with a top speed of around 240 kilometers per hour. And now the Federal Aviation Administration has granted Archer permission to operate an on demand air taxi service, having already obtained its airworthiness criteria. All that remains is the granting of type certification before flights can start. We'll explain that, don't worry. And that's good news for partners like Still Lantis, the US Air Force and, crucially, United Airlines. United hopes to buy $1.5 billion worth of aircraft, while Archer's latest quarterly results show it has $4 million cash on hand. Sounds like a strong start for the start up. And Adam Goldstein is Archers founder and CEO, and he joins us now. Adam, fantastic to have you back on the show. Congratulations. First and foremost, my understanding of this is there's two effective tracks. There's the certification of the airline itself and then the certification of the plane. So explain what the FAA has granted you today and what you still need. Yeah. Well, thank you very much, and it's great to be back. So this was a really exciting milestone for the company. So since I started the company, we've really been focused on these two tracks. And so you need to 1st build the airline and get that certified so that you can fly passengers all over the country and really all over the world. And we can do that with our partners like United Airlines. And then the second tract is to certify the aircraft itself, and that will enable mass production of these vehicles. And so we're in the final stages of the ladder. And what we announced was getting our operating certificate to launch the airline with the FAA. And so this is a really big milestone. It will enable us to be able to start flying in cities like New York City or Los Angeles or San Francisco. OK. So you, you say the latter one now is what we're waiting for. Have you filed all the information and all the data? Is it simply a case now of of waiting for the FAA to come through or is there more work that has to be done? I guess I'm trying to get a sense of timing. I know you're waiting on them, but have you done all the work on your side? Yeah. So we are in the process of going through the testing phase with the FAA. So we've set up all the criteria and we filed all the paperwork and now we're going through and testing all that. So first you start testing all your subsystems and you approve all the systems themselves work and then you put them in the aircraft and you start testing the aircraft itself. And so we're in that final phase with the FAA going through that and our hope is to get through it as soon as possible. I mean the initial target I remember was 2025, is that still the target? Yeah, that's still the target. So what's really been amazing as there has been, you know, a lot of excitement all over the world for this product. And so we've seen a lot of international markets also really lean in too. And so the UAE has been especially excited about this. And so we've announced a lot of partnerships all over the world, but specifically in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, there's been a lot of really countrywide level organization to really help launch this entire network. And that could end up being one of the early launch cities, launch markets in the world. Interesting. So watch this. Space, OK, so let's assume that the regulation is on track and we're looking at 2025, whether that's in the United States or to your point in, in the UAE. What about manufacturing these things? Cause I mentioned the cash that you have on hand for a reason. We know this is an expensive business. How many planes do you have the capabilities of manufacturing in 2025 at this stage based on your plans? I know we've got California and you've got Georgia. What about even manufacturing in, in the UAE or in the Middle East or even Europe potentially? Two. So the good news is that we took a capital light approach to building the manufacturing process. So the first thing we did was partner with a lot of the Tier 1 aerospace suppliers, so companies like Garmin or Honeywell or Saffron, so groups that have spent a long time and a lot of money developing a lot of the different subsystems. The next thing we did was partner with Stellatus, which is one of the largest auto OEM's in the world. They make Jeep, Ram, Maserati, so you know, millions of cars per year. We've worked together with Stellatus to help stand up our manufacturing plant. In Georgia, that plant will come online this year and has the capabilities of manufacturing up to 650 planes per year. And so there's a lot of potential here to get going. And so you know, when you when you put that all together, we're really looking at the opportunity to start scaling this industry here really in the next year, but also as we expand out into the later parts of the decade. OK. I think we should also take a step back for viewers that aren't familiar with what you're doing and just explain a little bit about what the vehicle comprises, the differences between this and. A helicopter for example. And, and what you with some of the big main partners that you're talking about here envisaged the cost of these flights will be what, what is gonna be the comparison? You're, you're clearly going to save people time, you hope getting them to these places, but what about the cost differential? So the reason why everybody's excited about these aircraft is that they're really structurally better vehicles than helicopters and they're structurally better across three main categories and that safety, noise and cost. And so this is an aircraft that has the ability to be really scaled out to become ultimately amass form of transportation. And so everybody I think universally agrees they would prefer to get to where they're going faster and not use up all their time just sitting in traffic. I think we all can agree on that. And so if that service can be offered to the masses instead of just the very select few that take helicopters today, that would be really pretty incredible. But because these vehicles are electric, they also have a much simpler form. And so these vehicles require less maintenance and they can fly a lot more than helicopters can today. So we can drive the price down and offer them something that's comparable to rideshare even from the very beginning, and drive that down even further over time, ultimately with the goal of being below car ownership. Wow. I mean the the greater accessibility point I think is a vital one too. What about charging though, Adam? I think if we look at the example of electric vehicles, part of the reticence and still is, is building out the infrastructure of of the charging facilities. How do you envisage that working? So we have great partners on charging. So one of our partners is actually another one of the EV tall companies called Beta. And so they've been building charging networks all over the country and soon to be all over the world. So charging is actually pretty similar to the charging we've seen on the ground with EV. So similar types of charging rates and similar types of charging technologies. So we have leveraged a lot of what the automotives have put in place in our existing powertrain from the batteries and the electric engines and we converted that over to a vehicle that can be flown. And so that will enable us to really leverage and use a lot of the existing EV technology charging infrastructure that's out there. Night. By the way, why is it called midnight? Well, that's a great question. My daughter seems to think about something to do with Taylor Swift, Archer, Midnight. There's a lot of crossover there, but really I think it's just a cool name. It's just that it's cool. Ohh. I think I prefer your daughters answer. We'll go with Taylor Swift. Adam, I'm looking forward to hearing from you again when this comes through. And I just want to raise my hand and offer to do test flight, whatever. I'm very excited about this. I know it's quieter as well, which is a key point compared to helicopters too, which is important. And Adam, great to chat to you. Thank you so much and have a great weekend. Founder and CEO of Archer Aviation there.