EVTOL Revolution: Archer’s ($ACHR) Adam Goldstein on Ur… — Transcript

Ever wish you could skip a 90-minute airport drive and be there in 10 minutes? Quietly on battery power, perhaps? That's the promise behind electric air taxis. I'm Katy Perry. My guest today here on StockTwits is Adam Goldstein, founder and CEO of Archer Aviation, ticker ACR. Adam, how are you? Welcome to the show. I'm great. Glad to be here.

Aviation, ticker ACR. Adam, how are you? Welcome to the show. I'm great. Glad to be here.

It's great to have you here. I was just complimenting you on your very cool jacket. I know you got a backstory behind that that we'll get into, but I want to start with Archer. Archer is a very popular stock among retail investors, as you know. We've been sourcing questions from our community for the past few days. I know you guys had earnings, but let's start with people who might not be familiar with you guys quite yet. What is Archer doing today and what is the future vision of the company?

investors as you know. We've been sourcing questions from our community for the past few days. I know you guys had earnings, but let's start with people who might not be familiar with you guys quite yet. Uh what is Archer

Well, we build electric air taxis that are used in both civil and defense applications. So, some people call them eVTOLs, electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. So, these are aircraft that are designed to fly in and around urban environments. So, think less than 100-mile type trips. Maybe it's a Manhattan to JFK type of trip where instead of driving there, which might take you 60 or 90 minutes, we can fly you there in five or 10 minutes. And on the defense side, there's also all this whole new category of what they call autonomous and attitudable aircraft. So I think unmanned and low-cost systems that are being used to replace the very expensive systems that we have out there. Whole new fleet of aircraft that are being built, and we're building the future of the defense as well.

that are designed to fly in and around urban environments. So, think less than 100 mile type trips, maybe it's a Manhattan to JFK type of trip where instead of driving there, which might take you 60 or 90 minutes, we can fly

You got me at the JFK to Manhattan because if you live in New York, you know that could be a two-hour schle. Sometimes longer than the actual flight you took. So that's very, very cool and interesting, and I know there's some other players building in this space as well. So would love to understand, I guess first, your history with the company. You founded it. Kind of when did this idea come about and also how you differentiate from some of the other players in the space people might be familiar with, Beta, Vertical, Joby. How are you guys different?

replace the very expensive systems that we have out there. Um whole new uh fleet of aircraft that are being built and uh we're building the future of of the fence as well.

Yeah, so the industry really came out of a project that NASA started working on 40 years ago. So NASA was trying to figure out how to use multiple electric engines to fly airplanes. And when you do that, you get these incredible benefits. You can build a much safer aircraft because you have tons of redundancy. You can build much quieter aircraft because you're spinning propellers at much slower speeds. And then, you know, ultimately can drive the cost down to something that's much more affordable rather than helicopters. So this was worked on for a long time. Really in 2009, Larry Page started a company called Zee Aero that really kicked off the whole industry. He went and approached a professor in Stanford named Milan Crow, sort of a famous aerodynamics professor, and they started building this company. So Zee Aero really helped usher in a lot of the early days of the eVTOL industry. In 2016, Uber started a product called Uber Elevate where they really put a business model behind this category and they said, well, if people are traveling these really short distances, if we could fly them there for the similar costs of what rideshare is, there could be a huge business built around that. So a famous white paper was written by a guy named Nquille Goyle, who's now a chief commercial officer at Archer. And they put out this concept in 2018. Morgan Stanley's analyst Adam Jonas put out this big report saying eVTOLs are the next multi-trillion dollar industry, and that really got everything going. So, I had been working on a previous startup and I sold that startup and used the money to start Archer, and I launched Archer in 2018. My whole concept was to take Archer from really what the industry had been very focused on, R&D, and take it to more of a commercial product. So Archer is heavily focused on commercialization.

there's some other players building in this space as well. So would love to understand uh I guess first like your your history with the company you founded it kind of when did this idea come about and also how you

There's like a lot of ways to cut up the industry. There are folks that are targeting passengers, others that are focused on cargo. So Archer is very focused on the civil passenger market.

Yeah so the industry really came out of a project that NASA started working on 40 years ago. So NASA was trying to figure out how to use multiple electric engines to fly airplanes. And when you do that, you get these incredible

We're also focused on the unmanned defense market. So, some of our competitors do different things, but they're all great companies. So Beta, for example, is doing both eVTOL and conventional, so SEAL as well.

affordable rather than than helicopters. So this was worked on for a long time. Really in 2009, Larry Page um started a company called Zero that really kicked off the whole industry. he went and approached a professor in Stanford named

So they'll start in cargo and then move over into the passenger stuff over time. You know, we differentiate from companies like Joby where they are building out their own networks to operate, and we are focused on selling aircraft. So we all have similar spaces that we play in, but we all have a little bit of a different twist on the model.

really put a business model behind this category and they said well if people are traveling in these really short distances if we could fly them there for the similar costs of what ride share is there could be a huge business built

Very, very helpful context because you do see eVTOL thrown around, and to your point, different people are doing different things, and I know you mentioned the civil use case.

saying EV talls are the next multi- trillion dollar industry and that really got everything going. Um, so I had been working on a previous startup and I sold that startup and used the money to start Archer and I launched Archer in 2018 and

Let's start there, and then I definitely have a lot of people asking about the defense. But Midnight, that's your electric air taxi. Tell me a little bit about how this works.

There's like a lot of ways to cut up the industry. There are folks that are uh targeting passengers, others that are focused on cargo. So Archer is very focused on the civil passenger market.

This is not something most of us have seen, have experienced yet. And a lot of questions I have just reading up on you guys is how does this work from an FAA perspective? How does this all happen? How do you get permitted, licensed? So where does it all stand on certification, and what does that process look like for somebody who's building a technology like this that's fundamentally different than anything that exists?

Um, so they'll do they'll start in cargo and then move over into the, um, you know, into the passenger stuff over time. Um, you know, we differentiate from, uh, you know, companies like Joby where they are, um, building out their

Well, the easiest way to think about this is this is just a kind of modernization or structurally better helicopter. So, we take off and land vertically like helicopters. The difference, though, is we have a wing, which does allow us to get more range than what you might have expected for a battery-operated aircraft. Because they're switched to batteries and electric engines, it enables you to put multiple electric engines onto these aircraft. And so if you have any type of issues where you lost a propeller, you lost a fuel source, you lost an engine, you have so much redundancy built into these aircraft, you can still fly safely and ultimately certify these aircraft at very, very high levels of safety. So we're just almost like replacing what the helicopter industry did for a much more affordable, much safer, and ultimately much lower noise product. So that's really the general concept. The FAA created a new category for us. They called it powered lift. This is the first new category in many decades. So this is a new concept, and they did that, which was, by the way, supported bipartisan. It's not a political thing. Everybody in America agreed that the US does need to maintain its leadership position in aviation, and we do see other countries really starting to gain traction. So the US really leaned in heavily here supporting the industry. So great support from the highest levels of government, both sides of the political system, that want to make sure that we can get these aircraft to market. So we're part of this first wave that's going through. A lot of the rules have been set. We're doing all the testing right now. And one of the important parts is you will start to see these aircraft in the wild next year in the summer because President Trump launched an executive order, and there was a program called the EIP or eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, which allows us to put these aircraft into the market. You'll see them flying around. Much of the industry will do it. It's not just an Archer thing. It's an industry thing. We'll all start flying, and we'll really start to get the public used to se—

Very very helpful context uh because you do see EV tall thrown around and and to your point different people are doing different things and I know you you mentioned the civil civil use case.

Let's start there and then I definitely a lot of people asking about uh the defense uh but midnight midnight that's that's your electric air taxi. Uh tell me a little bit about how this works.

This is not something most of us have seen, have experienced yet. Uh, and a lot of questions I have just reading up on you guys is how does this work from a, you know, FAA? How does how does this

all happen? How do you get permitted, licensed? Uh, so where does it all stand on certification and what does that process uh look like for somebody who's building a technology like this that's fundamentally different than anything that exists? Well, the easiest way to

think about this is this is just a kind of modernization or structurally better helicopter. So, we take off and land vertically like helicopters. The difference though is we have a wing which does allow us to get more range um

than what you know you might have expected for a battery operated aircraft. Because they're switched to batteries and electric engines, it enables you to put multiple electric engines onto these aircraft. And so if you uh you have any type of issues where

you lost a propeller, you lost a you know a fuel source, you lost an engine, you have so much redundancy built into these aircrafts, you can still fly safely and ultimately certify these aircrafts at very very high levels of

safety. So we're just almost like replacing what like the helicopter industry did for a much more affordable uh much safer and ultimately um you know much lower noise uh product. So that's really the general concept. Um the FAA

created a new category for us. They called it powered lift. This is the first new category in many decades. So this is a new concept and they did it they did that which was by the way supported bipartisan. It's not a uh you

know a political thing. Everybody in America agreed that the US does need to maintain its leadership position in aviation and we do see other countries really starting to gain traction and so um the US really leaned in heavily here

supporting the industry. So great support uh from the highest levels of government um both sides of the the political system that want to make sure that we can get these aircrafts to market. So we're part of this first wave

that's going through. A lot of the rules have been set. We're doing all the testing right now. And one of the important parts is you will start to see these aircrafts um in the in the wild next year in the summer because

President Trump launched um an executive order and there was a program called the EIP or EV tall integration pilot program which allows us to put these aircrafts into the market. You'll see them flying around. Much of the industry will do it.

It's not just an archer thing. It's an industry thing. we'll all start flying and we'll really start to get the public used to seeing these aircrafts and start to develop the consumer confidence we need to launch these aircrafts all over

the country. Yeah, you you you touched on the next thing I was going to ask, which is at what point do I look outside and I see some of these? So, you're saying next summer there could be some some in in

some key markets where you could look up into the sky and and see some of these.

Yeah. So, if you go back in 2022, the FAA created this new category and they said, "We're going to call this powered lift. It's not a helicopter. It's not an airplane. It's this new category powered lift. In 2022, they also set out a

vision where they called it innovate 28. The first time you would see mass use of these uh aircraft would be at the Los Angeles 2028 summer Olympics. And the reason they put that out there as an aspirational goal was they wanted to get

everybody like lined up around certain dates. So they wanted the regulators, the infrastructure players, the operators, um you know, the OEMs, everybody to work towards, you know, this singular goal where there's lots of aircrafts flying around in one

individual city. In May of 2025, the Olympics announced that Archer would be the exclusive air taxi provider for that event. So that was a huge deal for us.

And then in June of 2026, the uh executive order came down from the president where they said, "We are going to help create this pathway to go from just showcasing these aircrafts flying around in very conservative, you know,

point-to-point routes starting without people on them, just pilots, um, and build our way into the scaled operations in in 2028. So what you'll see now is it's estimated first quarter, so around January time frame, we'll hear the first

five cities that get picked for this that'll get picked by the Department of Transportation and then the expectation is by summer we'll start flying those routes. So you can expect to see some big cities. You can expect to see

probably some uh smaller cities. Um we are hopeful um you know we just bought an airport in Los Angeles called Hawthorne right outside of LAX and Sofi.

So that is uh you know an obvious target area for us and you'll start to see some of these um you know cities get announced and then ultimately start to operate there.

Very cool. That's it seems like a almost a futuristic reality that's that's nearly here and I can't think of a better use case than getting athletes around LA when they need to be at meets and matches uh during the Olympics. So I

think that's that's very cool and I know your jacket is official merch there uh and you have some props from the Olympics as well. Yes, the Olympics have been great partners to us. Uh we view ourselves as team USA and so we're super

proud to be partnered with Team USA and the uh entire Olympics. Um the goal is to move um dignitaries, uh VIPs, athletes, and fans in and around the games. Um we are working on a lot of the infrastructure to get that set up. We

have a lot of locations that we've been working with. Um so for example um we have a great partnership with Kroni Sports Entertainment which is uh the Rams and Sofi Stadium in Woodland Hills.

Um USC and the Coliseum of course Hawthorne airport and so there's lots of the venues that will be used during the Olympics that will be um I think quite important to the uh to the network that we're flying where people can go in and

around the games um and have a really uh you know great safe way to be uh transported and of course there'll be always good good merch that comes with it.

Yeah. Uh let's you'd mentioned Hawthorne a couple times. I want to get to that because a lot of buzz about the the acquisition of this airport in uh forums online and Stock Twits. Walk us through sort of the the decision-making process

for this purchase. Have you guys always been sort of on the hunt for an airport?

Uh where does it fit in the broader vision? Why this geography? Kind of tell us what you can about how this came about. So there there never was a plan to go out and acquire an airport. In fact, you can't really do it. Like if we

wanted to go buy Teterboro in New York, you can't just go do that. Sometimes the cities don't they're not they won't sell them. And when they do um have different agreements that are uh you know put out there, they tend to change hands very

very infrequently. I don't know the exact numbers, but I would bet you less than five airports have changed hands in the last five years.

So this is a very unique opportunity. it came up um where the the group um that um that that had control of the airport was um interested in selling it but they had a very quick turnaround from a time

perspective. So they approached us and said if you can do this before end of the year they would be interested in doing it. So it was a really um I would say opportunistic thing for us. It just also happened to be in the place exactly

where we wanted it. So my whole view has been Los Angeles will be the best city in the country potentially in the world to operate these aircrafts. It's very crowded. Over 5 million trips per day.

People are driving um less than 20 miles but greater than an hour in a car. And so there's an incredible amount of pent up demand that should be in that city.

And um the Olympics are going to be there in 2028. And so it was this really incredible opportunity where we had to set up a main base of operations. So, where are we going to depot the aircrafts, run all our ops out,

maintenance the aircrafts, and really use as a central kind of throughput or a grand central um type environment. It happened to be located two miles from Sofi Stadium where the opening games are and two miles from LAX. And so, what an

unbelievable just gift that was dropped in our lap to be able to go do this. It also happens to be profitable, makes money, so it's not like it's bleeding cash. And sort of the really interesting sweet spot is if you look at where it's

located, it's literally in all the Elon Musk, you know, world uh companies. So it's the Tesla design studios on the airport. The um um SpaceX is right next to it. The Boring Compan is right there.

So it's an incredible just energy in this area where you have um new companies building really radical things with radical visions to really go push the world into this future that we're all trying to build. So incredible company to be around and uh in an

absolute gift for us gift of an opportunity for us. You mentioned Tesla. Is that a formal partnership or you're more so alluding to just energy being in proximity of those teams.

There's not a formal partnership today um with uh any of the you know Elon Musk companies and I do think there's a lot of opportunities to work together to you know benefit the city of Los Angeles and to sort of broader benefit mobility and

transportation. And so we are huge supporters of the things that you know he's doing um you know at Tesla, at SpaceX, at Boring Company, at all the different companies. And so you know we're hopeful to help them in any way we

possibly can. It's quite the campus uh for sure. I want to touch on briefly defense defense tech uh investments in defense technology huge topic among retail investors obviously a huge area of focus not just for investors but the

the US government. Um, so I want to talk quickly. You mentioned the unmanned air uh aircraft or EV tall. Is EV tall unmanned or is Yeah. Is it the same or both?

Can be manned or unmanned. Okay. So the unmanned the the unmanned use case for defense. Walk us through sort of what the applications of that are and the status of of conversations with the DoD on uh on working with them

to, as you say, advance the US's um aviation advantage. So, the Ukraine war really changed the way a lot of people looked at defense because the US has done an incredible job of always having the most sophisticated systems um that would win

the wars. But what was interesting about the Ukraine war has been lowcost unmanned systems have really dominated the battlefields, drones. And so, we're all familiar with what's happening there. And so what you don't want to do is put very expensive systems in front

of very lowcost systems that can create what they call asymmetry or asymmetric warfare. Meaning you don't want to use a million- dollar missile to shoot down a $10,000 drone. That that math does not work for very long. And so the question

becomes when you start to look at all the different types of u you know equipment that we use um what are the best use cases for future conflicts that that come about? And so in the fixedwing aircraft, you can see really innovative

companies like Anderil that are uh positioning on uh like bigger aircrafts. So they call them the CCAs or collaborative combat aircrafts where they're building drones that will fly alongside F-35s, F-22s. So the same thing is likely to happen in roercraft.

So when you look at the big roercraft platforms, they're Blackhawks, Apaches, V22s, Shinooks, and they start to look at the different platforms that can be built there where you're building um unmanned and they call them attritable, meaning low cost and um because they're

unmanned, because they're low cost, you're much more willing to use them. When they're very expensive and there's humans involved, they're much more conservative with using those assets for obvious reasons. And so this next generation of aircraft that get built

will likely be focused on more robots. They are autonomous and attitudable. They're lowcost and they will likely be big fleets that get built. So we partnered with Anderoll to build u what we said was a hybrid. So there's heavy

fuels back into the aircraft so we can get a lot better range. Um and it will be autonomous and it will be a traitable. And we have not announced much more than that. What we've said is we are building a real product against

what we believe will become a very large program that we hope is announced at some point in the near future.

Well, maybe we'll see Palmer Lucky in one of those jackets soon with a a Hawaiian shirt underneath it. Uh question real quickly on these two pieces of the business in sort of the go to market. When we've talked about

companies like Palenteer in the past, we've talked about having kind of uh starting out building a lot of momentum in defense and then kind of evening out over time and with the the commercial uh applications outside of defense. How do

you see those the order of operations for those two for for you all? Is are they happening at the same time? Is one leading the other?

So the civil side definitely kicked off a lot of this and I think in like totality the civil side will be substantially larger than the defense side because you know if you think about it today there's only 50,000 helicopters

out there. How many cars are out there? I mean you know a typical big three car company will make I don't know 500,000 cars per month. So just one of them. So if you think about how large you know

the theoretical demand could be if you make this accessible you make it lowcost enough you start to build the infrastructure. So I think the civil side will certainly be larger. I do think that there is a it takes time to

get these aircrafts integrated into society. And so you know people will ask me you know do you think you could put 200 aircrafts into New York City let's say next year even if they're approved.

I don't think you could. I think it would take time to build that up. You have to start small. You'll put 20 aircrafts or 30 aircrafts. And each year you'll build up a little bit more over time. You have to get the general

public's uh you know buy in. You have to prove that these aircrafts are safe. And just because they get certified, we also have to show the operations are safe too and that we can do this at a scale um

safely that people will ultimately trust. So that will take a long time to go and do. So I'm very optimistic about that business, but I do understand it will take time. That's why Archer does sell aircraft and I believe that is the

business model that everybody will ultimately convert to because I think it's the only way to actually make money in this industry for the first let's call it even decade. On the other side, the defense industry is in a crunch

right now where they need new assets very very quickly to solve real world problems. And so I do believe that the defense industry will become a very large part of this industry potentially even larger for the first kind of let's

call it few innings um that we do go to market. So I would expect the defense industry to play a very large role if not even a larger role um in the early days of this industry as we take time

the years to go get up to the point where you know people are taking these aircrafts every day.

And and final one for you, Adam. You know, going through some of the comments following your earnings. Obviously, retail investors very passionate about the company. A lot of people asking about uh Dilution in particular, uh talking about sort of these these big

swings you're taking with Hawthorne, um and questions around just balancing the speed to market with with this issue of dilution. And I want to give you the the floor and the opportunity to kind of explain the the rationale and the

thinking behind some of these these moves and investments as you think about the long-term plan for the company. So what would you say to those investors who might be sort of having questions right now about where they stand as an

investor? If you look at the industry as a whole and you want to uh really try to understand how big it can be, um I think you have to truly look at archer from the long term and it's very volatile and

it's emotional and you have to try to detach yourself from that. So the likelihood in my view is that a handful of these companies will get certified.

Not 10, not 20, more like three or five, a low number of companies. Why? Because it's new technology. there needs to be a lot of safety around it. There is uh you know not that many people that understand how this stuff actually works

on the regulatory side. So I do think it'll become very concentrated. And by the way, that's the same thing you see across all aviation whether it's rockets or 737s or even general aviation. It's it's actually a fairly small group of of

companies. Then when you start to look at the market size and even in the early years, right? So you have to start to ask yourself, could San Francisco handle 20 of these aircrafts, 50 of these aircrafts? Could Los Angeles handle 50

of these aircrafts? I think those are very easy yeses. The question is, how deep does it get? Could the thousandth biggest city in the world handle 20 or 50 of these aircrafts? I think the answer is obviously yes. You start to

look at where helicopters are, start to look at what they've done. If we put 50 helicopters, 50 aircraft into a thousand cities, it's 50,000 vehicles times a $5 million ASP uh you know sales price.

We're talking in the you know hundreds of billions of dollars what this industry will be on top of the maintenance revenue that will be there.

So the question is not really um you know what's going on today. The question should really be focused on manufacturing. How many of these aircrafts can you build? Because that's always been the big constraint when it comes to hardware. How much can you

build and how long will that take? And if you're willing to explore that and go down that, I think you'll see this is has the opportunity to be a multi- trillion dollar industry with some huge winners that come out to be hundreds of

billions of dollars or however big they ultimately end up being. So I think you have to look at this from the long term.

If we make a move that is strategically important for the company that allows us to get closer to that goal, I think it is so worth it because the end prize is so big that you can't look at the

day-to-day moves. The dilution that you might see from any one individual raise, I think protects us, meaning I like to drive fast, but I will wear a seatelt when we do it. We have a very strong balance sheet, over two billion dollars

of cash. There's no need to raise additional capital today. Um, it allows us to survive the up and downs. And if we can get through that, we can build not only just one of the biggest businesses in the world, but I think one

of the most exciting businesses in the world. Nobody likes traffic. Nobody's sitting here saying, "Man, I'm so excited to spend two hours going from JFK to Manhattan." Everybody wishes it could be five minutes. So, if we can get

that dream done, I think everybody wins. Podcast hosts might like traffic, but you know what? There's always other places to to listen to podcast. Adam Goldstein, thank you so much for stopping by. Really, really interesting to hear about the business. Very

exciting about the Olympics. I'm excited to start seeing these around very soon. Uh, and you'll have to come back soon when you guys have some more updates for us.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.