Joby throws shade on Archer-BETA eVTOL recharging partnership

In a direct rebuff of this week’s announcement by electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) plane rivals Archer and BETA Technologies on co-developing an open-use aircraft recharging system, air taxi company Joby not only insisted it’s sticking with its own battery-juicing tech, but urged the entire sector to adopt it as the industry standard to boot.

In what was apparently an anticipated rejection of Archer’s November 7 announcement it will collaborate with fellow eVTOL company BETA Technologies to create an “interoperable and multimodal fast-charging system,” Joby fired off a nearly concurrent communiqué urging the nascent sector’s aircraft developers to adopt its tech as standard equipment.

To facilitate that – and, it would seem, derail the Archer-BETA train before it could even leave the station – Joby said it is making “the specifications for the universal charging interface we have developed for electric aircraft freely available to our industry.” 

The doubtless not-exclusively-altruistic objective behind the move was cited as avoiding “the fractured implementation of charging infrastructure seen in the auto industry.” As such, Joby’s goal in making its recharging tech accessible to the entire eVTOL sector is to secure its incorporation in “all of electric aircraft under development today, from air taxis delivering short range city flights to more conventional electric aircraft flying longer distances.”

If you’re going to lobby, lobby big – and hard.

Up until now – with the exception of the protracted and remarkably venomous legal battle between Wisk and Archer, which the companies transformed into cooperative lovey-dovey last August – the eVTOL sector has largely respected rules of strict decorum in comments between or about competitors. Some have gone so far as to publicly congratulate rivals for milestones passed in development and testing work.

It was therefore notable that Joby’s preemptive jolt mere hours before the Archer-BETA partnership was announced included warnings to the eVTOL sector not to repeat the EV errors of embracing “the lowest common denominator” in developing and adopting charging tech that “has failed the market test.”

Joby was similarly pointed in highlighting its work on recharging infrastructure being designed for “all” (its italics, not ours) eVTOL aircraft – a universality it not too flatteringly observed “is not true of the alternative concept currently being proposed” (glowering at you, Archer and BETA). 

With the certification and subsequent rollouts of the first air taxi activities not expected before 2025 at earliest, there’s still a lot of time for convergence – or even snarkier sparring – on eVTOL recharging tech. To facilitate the former, Joby assured it looks “forward to working with our industry colleagues and relevant standards bodies to deliver an approach to charging that is in the interest of every operator.”

Just so long, one assumes, as Joby’s tech is the straw is stirring that eVTOL recharging drink.