You have a history of entrepreneurship. What motivated you to launch Joby almost 15 years ago?
I grew up in a serene place amongst the redwoods, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, but it was a long trip to and from school, which led me to dream of more efficient ways to get from A to B. I envisioned an aircraft that could take off and land vertically without the noise or emissions of traditional aeroplanes. This boyhood dream persisted into college in the early 90s, though at that time, the batteries weren't ready to deliver the needed specific energy.
I tracked the progress of the electric auto vehicle industry and the advancements in batteries, and by the time 2007-2008 came around, I was convinced the time was finally right. In 2009, I founded Joby to change daily transportation, aiming to bring the dream of flying mobility into our daily lives.
What is it about the state of California that lends itself to high levels of innovation in aviation and aerospace?
We've been able to gather a diverse team of talented engineers from various fields like electric vehicles, software, and hardware. We're building advanced flight computers, software stacks, inverters, motors, and actuators, coupled with next-generation aerodynamic design. This innovation is largely happening in Silicon Valley, leveraging computational fluid dynamics and additive manufacturing.
We are very vertically integrated, designing, building, and testing all aircraft systems ourselves, and we plan to operate the service too. This approach creates a faster feedback loop between the customer experience and product development. We're at the dawn of an era where air trips can bypass traffic constraints. Being self-reliant allows a much faster feedback loop between engineering, testing, and manufacturing, facilitating fluid iteration.
You were invited to testify before the US House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on the subject of aviation noise. How large of an issue is aviation noise, and what is Joby Aviation doing to address it?
Noise is a fundamental limiting factor to helicopter operations today, as we’ve seen cities like Los Angeles severely limit nonessential operations at aviation infrastructure in order to prioritize community quality of life. From day one, we believed it was essential for the acoustics of our aircraft to be revolutionary to offer a new type of mobility service without compromising the peace and quiet of our communities.
With electric propulsion, we can make aircraft dramatically quieter, but it's not just about using electric motors. We need to be thoughtful about the design of propellers. We've spent 15 years developing some of the quietest propellers, spinning them slowly to reduce noise, which requires a high specific torque electric motor. Our motor generates enough torque to spin large propellers slowly, resulting in a quieter and more pleasant sound compared to helicopters. We want our aircraft to be welcomed in communities, and demonstrations in New York City showed excitement for our quieter aircraft.
How much quieter is your aircraft compared to a helicopter or airplane?
Helicopters are typically between 85 and 95 decibels. Our aircraft, tested by NASA, measures about 65 decibels in hover and 45 decibels in overflight. Every 10 decibels is a factor of 10 in noise energy, so our aircraft's noise energy is at least 100 times lower than helicopters. This reduction is a significant engineering achievement.
It’s not just quiet in an absolute sense, it is quiet in terms of the quality of the sound; instead of the ‘wop-wop’ of a helicopter which is intrusive, annoying, and travels long distances, it is more of a ‘whoosh’ sound. I talk about it wanting to sound like the wind in the trees from my childhood.
You recently announced an exclusive agreement to operate in Dubai, and previously announced that you expect New York to be one of your early launch markets after receiving FAA certification through a partnership with Delta Airlines. What are the future new markets for your eVTOL aircraft?
We see incredible demand from cities worldwide that are facing transportation challenges and that don’t have good solutions as the economic vitality of their cities increases. As traffic increases, it impacts productivity and quality of life. We believe this opens a whole new dimension in the ability for city planners to provide efficient solutions. There is huge demand and excitement in cities like Tokyo and Seoul, among many others. In any metropolitan area where congestion is a front-of-mind issue with trips taking longer than thirty minutes, there is potential.
On the certification side, we've been working with the FAA since 2015 and began formal certification in 2018. We're now in stage four of five stages. Being vertically integrated enables us to integrate learnings from the test program quickly, which is crucial for success in the certification process. Where we are today is very analogous to where the automobile industry was in the 1890s when we used them as taxis, which drove up production volumes and drove down unit prices until they became ubiquitous. This is a collective opportunity for us to reshape human transportation.
