Joby and Archer Burn Cash While the FAA Clock Runs
Two electric air taxi developers are spending hundreds of millions annually to reach FAA type certification. Cash runway, not flight footage, is becoming the number that separates them.
Joby (JOBY, last close 7.53, -0.66%) and Archer (ACHR, last close 6.30, +3.45%) are both burning hundreds of millions of dollars a year while pursuing FAA type certification for their electric air taxis, with cash runway rather than aircraft design increasingly the deciding variable.
Two companies are trying to do something no one has done in the United States: put a battery-powered, vertical-takeoff passenger aircraft into commercial service with the Federal Aviation Administration's blessing. Both are spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to get there. Neither is selling rides yet.
Joby Aviation (NYSE: JOBY) closed most recently at 7.53, down 0.66% on the session from a prior close of 7.58, with a day range of 7.52 to 7.78. Archer Aviation (NYSE: ACHR) closed at 6.30, up 3.45% from 6.09, having traded between 6.10 and 6.53. Those are last traded prices as of 20:00 GMT on Friday, 21 August 2026; the market is closed.
The divergence on that single session is a fair miniature of the whole trade. These are not stocks that move on revenue, because there is essentially none to move on. They move on certification news, on partnership announcements, and above all on the market's shifting guess about which one runs out of money first.
Why type certification is the whole business
Type certification is the FAA's formal sign-off that an aircraft design is safe to carry passengers. It is not a permit to fly a prototype — both companies already do that. It is the approval that turns a piece of hardware into a product that can be sold, insured and operated commercially. Until it lands, an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) developer is a research programme with a stock ticker attached.
The process is deliberately slow. It runs through staged milestones — certification basis agreement, means-of-compliance definition, test plan approval, and finally the grinding work of actually demonstrating each item to the regulator's satisfaction. Every one of those stages costs money and none of them generates any. That is the structural problem the Motley Fool piece frames as a race, and it is the reason the contest is decided as much in the treasury as in the hangar.
An important nuance for anyone new to the sector: being "ahead" on certification is not a single scoreboard number. A company can be further along on paperwork and behind on hardware, or vice versa. Progress claims from the companies themselves are milestone-based and self-reported, which is why the market tends to price the more legible variable instead — the balance sheet.
Hundreds of millions a year, and what that implies
Both Joby and Archer are burning hundreds of millions of dollars annually. That is the figure the lead establishes, and it is the one that governs everything else. At that rate of spend, a certification timeline that slips by a year is not an inconvenience — it is a financing event.
The arithmetic of a pre-revenue aerospace programme is unforgiving in a specific way. Fixed engineering headcount, flight-test operations, manufacturing tooling and a certification team that has to stay staffed for the duration are all costs that do not scale down when a milestone slides right. There is no revenue line to cushion a delay and no mature product to harvest cash from. The only levers are cutting scope, which slows certification further, or raising capital.
That last point is why dilution is the quiet risk in both names. Every equity raise that funds another year of burn also shrinks what an existing shareholder owns of the eventual outcome. An investor who is right about the technology and the timeline can still be wrong about the return if the share count doubles along the way.
The number that actually separates them
If you want one metric, it is cash runway: liquid resources divided by the annual burn, measured against the remaining certification timeline. A company with more runway than programme left to fund controls its own destiny. A company with less is negotiating with capital markets at whatever terms those markets offer on the day — and eVTOL is a sector where sentiment can swing hard on a single regulatory headline.
Runway also determines who can absorb a setback. Certification programmes almost never run to plan; test articles get damaged, a means of compliance gets rejected, a supplier misses. The firm with cushion treats that as a schedule item. The firm without treats it as an emergency raise, usually at a depressed price.
Neither company's cash balance or precise burn rate is specified in the material available here, and it would be irresponsible to guess at one. Investors should take those figures directly from the most recent quarterly filings, where they are stated plainly, and divide.
Reading the tape against the broader market
The wider market was firm into that Friday close. The S&P 500 tracker (SPY) finished at $765.72, up 0.41%; the Nasdaq 100 proxy (QQQ) closed at $713.44, up 0.35%; the Dow tracker (DIA) ended at $532.22, up 0.89%. Against a benchmark moving less than half a percent, Archer's 3.45% gain and Joby's 0.66% slip are idiosyncratic moves, not market beta.
Single-digit share prices for companies of this ambition tell their own story. Both stocks sit at levels where a modest dollar move is a large percentage move, and where index and option flows can dominate fundamentals for stretches at a time. Volatility here is a feature of the capital structure, not a signal about the aircraft.
What to watch from here
- Quarterly cash and burn disclosures. The runway calculation refreshes every filing. Watch whether burn is accelerating into final certification testing, which is normal, or drifting up without matching milestone progress, which is not.
- Named FAA milestones. Vague progress language is worth less than a specific, dated stage completion. Distinguish company statements from regulator confirmations.
- Financing activity. Any equity raise, convertible issue or strategic investment resets the dilution maths and is usually the most consequential news either company can publish short of certification itself.
- Manufacturing readiness. Certification without the ability to build at rate is a paper victory. Production line commissioning and supplier commitments matter as much as the regulatory ticks.
The framing of a race is convenient but slightly misleading. Certification is not winner-take-all — the FAA can approve both designs, and a market for urban air mobility large enough to justify either valuation would need more than one operator. The real question is not who crosses first. It is who crosses with a share count and a balance sheet that still make the crossing worth something.
Key facts
- JOBY last close: 7.53, -0.66%, as of 21 Aug 2026 20:00 GMT
- ACHR last close: 6.30, +3.45%, as of 21 Aug 2026 20:00 GMT
- Annual cash burn: Hundreds of millions of dollars at each company
- Deciding metric: Cash runway versus remaining FAA type certification timeline
Frequently asked questions
What is FAA type certification and why does it matter here?
Type certification is the FAA's formal approval that an aircraft design is safe to carry passengers. It is separate from permission to fly prototypes. Without it, an electric air taxi developer cannot sell commercial rides. For Joby and Archer, it is the gate that converts years of engineering spend into an actual revenue-generating product.
How did Joby and Archer shares last close?
As of the last trade at 20:00 GMT on Friday, 21 August 2026, Joby closed at 7.53, down 0.66% from a prior close of 7.58, with a day range of 7.52 to 7.78. Archer closed at 6.30, up 3.45% from 6.09, having traded between 6.10 and 6.53. Markets were closed thereafter.
Which company is further along in certification?
Both companies are preparing for FAA type certification and both describe themselves as progressing. Precise stage-by-stage positioning is not established in the available material, and self-reported milestone claims are not directly comparable. Investors should rely on regulator-confirmed milestones and company filings rather than promotional progress language.
Why is cash runway considered the deciding number?
Both firms burn hundreds of millions of dollars annually with essentially no revenue to offset it. Cash runway — liquid resources divided by annual burn — determines whether a company can absorb the inevitable schedule slips in a certification programme or must raise capital on unfavourable terms, diluting existing shareholders in the process.
What is dilution risk in this context?
Pre-revenue aerospace companies fund themselves by issuing new shares. Each raise increases the total share count, so an existing holder owns a smaller slice of any eventual success. An investor can be correct about the technology and the certification outcome and still see poor returns if the share count expands substantially along the way.
Can both companies succeed, or is it winner-take-all?
The FAA can certify more than one design, so this is not structurally winner-take-all. A commercially meaningful urban air mobility market would likely support multiple operators. The more pressing question for shareholders is whether each company reaches certification with a balance sheet and share count that leave the achievement worth owning.
Sources
Photo: Andrew Mark · Pexels Licence — source
