YouTube Video — Transcript

Niki: I'm Niki Christoff, and welcome to Tech'ed Up. Today, I'm in the studio talking with Adam Goldstein, founder and CEO of Archer Aviation. We're talking about the future of eVTOLs, aka flying vehicles or air taxis, and how this new type of aircraft can help give us back some of the time we spend sitting in traffic. Adam, thank you for coming into the studio while you're visiting Washington.

Adam: It's good to be here.

Niki: So, let's just jump right out of the gate with an acronym that I sort of understand because when I was at Uber, we worked on it, but eVTOLs, what is that?

Adam: eVTOLs. Ugh, here we go! It stands for Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing, and it was a term that was coined by a NASA scientist named Mark Moore. So, Mark was the first one to figure out how to build airplanes using electric powertrains, electric motors. And so, because this started, you know, from a NASA technology, of course, NASA, not from a branding perspective, but from a scientific perspective, gave it its name.

Niki: Yes.

Adam: But the way to think about it are these are electric helicopters with wings. And so, the category that we're trying to create is all around flying cars. So, think about the way that people move around cities today, where they're spending 60 to 90 minutes in a car, moving, you know, 20, 30, 40 miles, where we can take those trips, move them into the air, and fly those trips 5, 10, 15 minutes.

Niki: And make them all-electric, too. So they're quieter than regular helicopters.

Adam: So, the types of vehicles, these, we'll just call them flying cars, have substantial benefits over the existing, what we call urban air mobility solution, so helicopters. So, helicopters are used today, they fly, they, you know, very similar types of trips, similar types of missions. Helicopters have kind of three big challenges. First one is noise, and that really prevents them from scaling across the different cities. Even the cities they operate in already today, they're limited in what they can do because of the noise pollution it causes to the people below them. Second one is safety. So, the challenges with helicopters are they have a lot of single points of failure. So, if you put too many of them in the air, you'll start to have a lot of incidents. And then finally, it's cost. Very expensive to take helicopters today because they're very complicated. So, the cost, safety, noise value proposition of flying cars is just structurally different than what you see with helicopters today. That's why I'm so excited about it. And that's why I think it will ultimately change the way people move in and around cities.

Niki: Washington's a kind of odd city because we have closed airspace, but we have about a zillion helicopters all the time. Government, I live next to the Vice President's house, and it's just like, it's brutal. It's constant, constant noise. The other thing we have is the trip from Dulles airport to downtown is absolutely brutal. But, however, we have a lot of regulations here, so you're looking at places like, say, New York.

Adam: Yeah, so pretty much the major cities in the US are obvious: New York, L.A., San Francisco, Miami. But D.C. is actually pretty interesting, too. You're right. A lot of the airspace here is restricted. But today, they use Hueys to fly a lot of those missions in and around cities, and a lot more VIP missions. You're taking a general or a senator or somebody like that, you know, whether it's to the White House or to the Pentagon or wherever, to the airport. There is a desire for a solution that's safer, quieter, lower cost, just like the general public wants. And so, when you start to step back and realize what this category is, it's going to really impact everyone everywhere. Much of the rotorcraft that are used today in the US military, so, the Blackhawk is like the main, you know, kind of workhorse. And so, Blackhawks are very expensive to operate. And so, if you could choose to operate a vehicle or on a mission like that, you would use a Blackhawk for, but a much lower cost vehicle. I assume that would be a really good choice, attractive proposition. So, it's really starting to spread everywhere. And you know, the goal is to ultimately replace helicopters with safer, quieter, lower-cost vehicles.

Niki: Okay? So there's a public sector play here too, which is selling to the government. Just for people listening, and I don't know why I'm always mansplaining things on this podcast, but the Hueys are the green and white ones that you see constantly, to your point there, flying, you know, VIPs around. But the idea is you could sell those to the government, you could sell your aircraft.

Adam: We actually have a contract today for it's an up to 142 million dollar agreement with the Air Force through the AFWERX program, where there's a lot of, I would say, overall just encouragement and desire to help this industry get born here in the US and then ultimately to provide solutions that are for the traveling public, but could be for different cargo logistics use cases as well. So think about, like, disaster relief, same thing. If you had a disaster, you wanted to send a helicopter to deliver supplies or rescue people, you're still using helicopters that at the very least are very expensive.

Niki: Right.

Adam: People won't care about noise in a disaster scenario.

Niki: Right.

Adam: But they still will care about cost because now instead of sending one, maybe you could send five. And so, all of a sudden you have a solution that is really attractive to just society, you know, as a whole.

Niki: And I've heard you talk about, so I used to live in Silicon Valley, and I've heard you say that sometimes you bring investors and you have them drive [chuckling] from San Francisco down to San Jose or vice versa, whichever way they're going, and sit in traffic, and then you take them on a test flight. So they can feel what it feels like. Tell me a little bit about how that works for you because you said that it's sort of life-changing.

Adam: Yeah, so most people in the US, if you ask them, “Have you ever flown on a helicopter?” They will almost all say zero or one times. And so, that's like pretty standard. If you ask them, well, “When did you fly on a helicopter?” And they'll say, “Well, it was in Hawaii on a trip.”

Niki: Oh my gosh, [chuckling] I was just going to say one time for me in Kauai!

Adam: Perfect. That was it.

Niki: No doors, looking at like, that made me sound kind of, like, fancier than I am. But yes. One time.

Adam: So that's typical. So helicopters today are typically used by very wealthy or sometimes famous people, people that have very high price on their time. And so I think it's a pretty unbelievable experience when you get to fly in a helicopter to save time. You just feel pretty magical. You're flying over the traffic. It's also a beautiful view. And so what we try to do for people that come to visit us is, you're right, if they are at the airport at SFO, we'll make them drive down to San Jose. It'll take them, you know, depending on if there's traffic, 60 or 90 minutes. And then we'll show them around the office. We'll take them to the factory. They can see the planes getting built. We'll show them the different labs. They can fly in the flight test simulators. And then we'll take a helicopter down to Salinas, Salinas Airport, where we do our flight test.

Niki: Mm-hmm.

Adam: And so, just flying in a helicopter from the headquarters in San Jose, 60 miles to Salinas and getting there in a relatively quick period of time is a really great experience. Most people don't get to have that. And then to make it really magical, you can fly to Monterey and go get lunch and then fly back to SFO and end your day. And you did a lot in one day. And all of a sudden, you start to realize, “Oh my God, if I had the ability to fly around like this, my life would be so diffe...

feel what it feels like. Tell me a little bit about how that works for you because it's you said that it's sort of life-changing. Adam: Yeah, so most people in the US, if you ask them, “Have you ever flown on a helicopter?:

They will almost all say zero or one times. And so, that's like pretty standard. If you ask them, well, “When did you fly on a helicopter?” And they'll say, “Well, it was in Hawaii on a trip.” Niki: Oh my gosh, [chuckling] I was just

going to say one time for me in Kauai! Adam: Perfect. That was it. Niki: No doors, looking at like, that made me sound kind of, like, fancier than I am. But yes. One time. Adam: So that's, that's typical. So

helicopters today are typically used by very wealthy or sometimes famous people, people that have very high price on their time. And so I think it's, it's, it's a pretty unbelievable experience when you get to fly in a helicopter to save time. You just feel pretty

magical. You're flying over the traffic. It's also a beautiful view. And so what we try to do for, y’know, people that come to visit us is. You're right, if they are at the airport at SFO, we'll make them drive down to San Jose. It'll take them, y’know, depending on if

there's traffic, 60 or 90 minutes. And then we'll show them around the office. We'll take them to the factory. They can see the planes getting built. We'll show them the different labs. They can fly in the flight test simulators. And then we'll take a helicopter down to Salinas,

Salinas Airport, where we do our flight test. [Niki: Mm-hmm] And so, just flying in a helicopter from the headquarters in San Jose. 60 miles to Salinas and getting there in a relatively quick period of time is a really great experience. Most people don't get to have that. And then to

make it really magical, you can fly to Monterey and go get lunch and then fly back to SFO and end your day. And you did a lot in one day. And all of a sudden, you start to realize,

“Oh my God, if I had the ability to fly around like this, my life would be so different.” And that really clicks for people. Because when I describe the concept of, y’know, these aircraft coming into the general public, most people have a hard time accepting that.

It's like when Steve Jobs got onto the stage and he said, “Here's this new product, the iPhone,” he kept it super basic to what it does. He said “It does three basic things,” right? And so, he didn't say “There's going to be an app store and you're going to be able to download concert

tickets and pay for them on your phone and use your phone to swipe into a concert and order food on your phone. The phone will be delivered to you based on geolocation.” Like it was, that would have blown people's minds. Very simple basics really helped people connect with the product.

Just showing people the basics of this product, I think, really helps people establish what the future is going to be like. And as we start to produce more and more of these vehicles and flying places intra city instead of in between cities or states or countries, when flying in between cities

or intra-city or It's just this magical click that you see happen with people and so that's what we try to create that experience for them. Niki: And I think you're right. Not many people have much opportunity to fly to Monterey for lunch potentially from a business meeting, but a

lot of people have to go from JFK to downtown and you're sitting in traffic. I mean, the main reason I refused to ever live in Chicago is because getting from O'Hare downtown is, like, absolutely life-draining. It's so difficult. So the idea of just even those long airport trips, but you could

do longer trips than that in these vehicles that would just kind of supplant mostly cars because you still aren't doing regional flights. Adam: Yeah. So the airport trips are really interesting because it's a good way to start in a city.

And so, if you're going to introduce this new concept where you can fly from, y’know, point A to point B, what better way to start with a location like an airport that already has built-in demand, willingness to pay Uber. You can see that today, people use Ubers to

get to the airports, obviously, because you don't want to necessarily bring your car, but also the built-in anxiety of the variability of traffic. And so, you have to leave early in order to get to the airport to ensure you don't miss your flight. So, it makes it even more compelling of a use case

to start. So, if you live in Manhattan, you have to go to JFK. I did that trip, I mean, hundreds of times. I lived in the city for 20 years. That trip can take 60 minutes, 90 minutes, or 120

minutes. And therefore, you kind of always plan for a 90 minute trip, even though you might end up getting there in 50 minutes. And that's really annoying. And you're at the airport even earlier.

So, all of a sudden, if you could fly there, and you don't have the variability of flight time, because it's, you either can fly or you can't, and it's a relatively short distance, it'll be about 15 miles in the air, you can do that flight in around five minutes.

And so, even if you gave yourself 3x the time, right? 15 minutes in case something went wrong, meaning the flight was delayed or there was some kind of challenge, it's still dramatically different than the, the door-to-door experience you'd have driving. And

there's something emotional about it too, because sitting in 90 minutes of traffic is life training.

And so it's a, it's a really, Niki: it's not good for the mental health of commuters! Adam: Exactly. Now you want to like one-up it, which is like what Archer is working on with United Airlines. What if you could go and fly

and land airside, go through a private security there. So, instead of the main artery where everybody goes through from a TSA standpoint, you go through a smaller one where it's just you and a few other people. And then you walk right upstairs and you go right to your gate. And so, not only

are you missing the entire ride to the airport, but you can actually miss the entire airport itself. That's like flying private. And that is an amazing experience. So again, the airport is a really interesting way to start cities. So we think about kind of these nodes and hub

and spokes, the main point of interest could start as an airport, which is we call it a trunk route.

And then you can branch off into other nodes that go, for example, in New York City, you could have, y’know, points of interest in New Jersey or in, in Long Island or, y’know, in, y’know, Connecticut.

Niki: Philly? Philly's too far? Adam: A little far, but you could do Philly. The uestion starts to become why would somebody go from, y’know, Manhattan to Philly versus a different airport that they might want to fly into?

Niki: Or they could take a train. Yeah. Adam: So, the train is, does take time. So, there are lots of really interesting, y’know, use cases compelling.

And they exist. It's not even, this is not a, a New York City problem, it's not a US problem. This is a global issue. It's not even a US problem. Think about places like India where if you want to go from Y’know, Delhi to the airport,

y’know, you're talking about like a, a pretty substantial driving time, it could take you three hours to do that. So, same thing in Bengaluru. So, same kind of concept. You start looking at these use cases all over the world and you realize,

“Oh my God, this is a global product that has the potential to be one of the biggest company categories of the next decade.” Niki: And India is a place that's a great example.

So are you finding that there is the same amount of receptivity internationally or more in certain countries? Like what's the dynamic? I mean, you're certainly working with cities directly to figure out regulatory issues and airspace issues and all of that. But overseas,

Is it a friendlier environment for this? Adam: Yeah, so there are only a certain amount of places you can go to certify a new aircraft. You're generally talking about in the US, you go to the FAA. In Europe, you go to EASA. Which is [spells out] EASA, YASA.

In Canada, you go to Transport Canada. In Brazil, you go to ANAC. And so, the reason why those all exist too, it's like Boeing is like the US and Airbus was, you know, Europe and Bombardier in Canada and Embraer in Brazil. So it becomes like the certification offices were

kind of centered around the OEMs that started. And so, there's not a lot of places to go do this. The US is by far, in a way, the biggest regulator globally. There are an incredible amount of trips that are, that are taken. in the US and I think it was like up until the year 2000,

more passengers flew in the US than the rest of the world combined. When you look at like the different regulators too, the, the FAA is by far the biggest regulator in the world in terms of number of people by a factor of like, y’know, over a hundred. And

so it is a y’know, there's a depth of knowledge. Here just simply based on the amount of business that's taking place in the US So, the former FAA administrator, Billy Nolan came out and said, y’know, “I'm putting a target out here on how to bring this industry of flying cars to the world.”

And that's going to be what he called ‘Innovate 28,’ which was the LA Olympics in 2028 - mass use of these flying cars, these eVTOLs. And so, in order to do that that means we have to go actually certify these vehicles many years in advance of that because if we're going to have

mass use, y’know, the whole infrastructure and ecosystem and air traffic management, everything has to get built out Niki: [interrupts quickly] and trust Adam: And trust of the public to do that, of course.

And so, that got the rest of the world excited. So all of a sudden, FAA was saying, “Look, there's this potential for mass use in 2028.” That means our countries need to start thinking about our solutions. So you started to see different countries rally. So,

Korea came out and said they had a, y’know, a, sort of a global or a countrywide initiative to bring together some of the biggest companies in Korea to help create the ecosystem in Korea.

Japan's did the same thing. The Middle East got really, became really active. So, the UAE was really at the front of the line here, pushing to have these, y’know, kind of ecosystems.

Whether it's the regulator or the infrastructure partners or the pilot training or the MRO partners all come together to build these ecosystems. And so, that engine revved up quickly. And so, now what's happening is you started to see the country start to say things like the UAE has said, “2026,

we're going to be live.”That's a UAE comment, not an Archer comment. And so, all of a sudden it becomes quite interesting for the OEMs because we want to start go out and deploying aircrafts.

So, we are working very closely with the regulator here, the FAA, to bring these planes to market.

It is our desire to be able to launch in the US first. That's what we want but there is a lot of global interest that who knows, maybe could rival the timeline of what the US is putting forward.

Niki: And when you talk about your competitors in this space, is it? Is China, do they have a version? [chuckling] I know the answer to this is a very leading question.

When you talk about your competitors in this space, who's at top of mind for you?

Adam: Yeah. So, there are lots of different challenges that the companies have to get through.

One is certification but the other is just overall engineering talent to build these vehicles. And then the other kind of big category is capital. We are very fortunate to be just, y’know, lucky to be based in the US because the capital markets here are deeper than any of the

other regions in the world. And so - Niki: You SPAC'd at a billion bucks, right? Adam: Yeah. So, we raised a lot of capital Right. Here, which enabled us to go hire a lot of very credible people who

have built and certified airplanes before. And so, that gave us a huge advantage over a lot of the global kind of competitors. And so, some of our US competitors did the same.

Internationally, you didn't see that. And so, the challenge of some of the companies, let's say like in Europe, is they just didn't raise enough capital. And so, all the other things that the, y’know, that you need to do certification and the engineering

became much more challenging because they couldn't afford to hire like the way Archer could do that.

The same thing actually happened in China as well. So, China has been very forward-leaning in terms of being willing to certify aircraft. They've already said they've certified two aircraft. One of them is called EHang. The other one's called AutoFlight. So they're trying to find ways to

actually bring these vehicles to market. So, they're taking a little bit more of an aggressive approach., but there's going to be limitations in those vehicles coming to the West.

And so, that's going to be, I think, a little bit more, y know, a country-specific versus, if you get certified in the US through the FAA or EASA in Europe, you can pretty much use those through different bilateral agreements to expand much more rapidly to other parts of the world.

Niki: And you know what the safety standards are. Adam: Yes. So, a lot of the regulators around the world look to the FAA and to EASA for guidance on how this industry will be ultimately built out and maintained to be safe and what the regulations will be. So, there's a lot of history of building

and certifying planes that exists here that doesn't really exist in other parts of the world.

Niki: And when you're talking about capital, this is when you're building hardware and you're put, well, I worked at Uber for a long time, but when you're putting humans into vehicles or aircraft, you need really sophisticated technology. You need a lot. It's very capital-intensive. And I'm always

talking about how the US capital markets are one of our greatest natural resources. So, I love to see it. But I wouldn't have thought about that necessarily as a competitive advantage. So, I think that's an interesting point. Adam: It's a huge one. I mean, if you,

the reality to build and certify these aircraft, you need hundreds of really highly qualified engineers for many, many years. A lot of the ability to raise capital in the US in the hardware space goes back to Tesla and Elon Musk. [Niki: mm-hmm] So really,

before Tesla, it was very hard to raise capital in hardware because there just haven't been that many successful hardware companies. It's also a really tough pitch. “Hey, VC, would you like to give me a billion dollars of capital upfront before we start building the thing? And maybe it'll work.”

Niki: And the exit is way longer than if you're building like an app for cats. It's not a seven-year exit. It's just going to be a lot longer.

Adam: Hard to understand. Post Tesla, that became actually doable. Now, the window was pretty narrow, and so we were fortunate to hit the window and raise a lot of capital, which allowed the machine to really spin, so we could hire the people, we could get the progress, we

could get the attention from the regulators, and we could really start keeping this flywheel going.

That fortunate ability to raise capital was just the difference between, y’know, some of the companies in the industry that have done well and some of the companies that haven't been doing so well. It's simply because they don't have the capital to do it. Definitely

talent and capital are the two advantages that the US has that, that nowhere else in the world has and it's a very, very unique thing. Niki: And I want to make a comment about an advantage I think Archer has, which is, you had mentioned Steve Jobs and trying to explain

to people the iPhone aesthetics. It's just like a sick-looking aircraft. [chuckling] And you've got this video of Usher getting onto it. We'll put a link to it in the show notes, but it just, how much did you focus on aesthetics and why? I mean,

you had to, because it just looks amazing. Adam: Well, thank you. So building, when people build cars, they're generally like very emotional about building them, less mathematical.

So there's a lot of freedom in building cars, much more than there are in airplanes.

So when you look at airplanes today, they mostly all look the same. It's a tube and a wing, right? So, when you could all of a sudden redesign aircraft with a lot more, kind of openness and freedom, there's so much you could do. And that was like the first time

in a long time in aviation where you actually had this chance to go build something really cool.

So, the whole kind of breakthrough in technology was electric motors can scale down very efficiently. S,o you can use two, four, eight, twelve, a hundred, doesn't matter. You can choose whatever you want. And so, it gave you an ability to build around this freedom of design. Now,

obviously there's still a lot of limitations. So things like the propellers we use to take off also have to be out of the way when we're flying forward in cruise because they're very draggy. So there are limitations from that perspective. But the, the, the thing that I set out from

the very beginning was we were going to build an aircraft that was emotional versus mathematical.

And so, that was going to, that made it a lot harder and so the physics push you to make these vehicles look a very specific way. One of the biggest things that I pushed on was we are going to hire the best engineers in the world and we are going to have to work harder than everybody

else to make sure that this aircraft is not only mathematically sound, but also looks incredible.

And so here's things that we did that we're just super differentiating the vehicle. Some of them, you don't even notice from a design perspective. They're more of like a CX-like perspective. So, we made the aircraft really low to the ground so you could get into it more like

a car rather than step up into it like general aviation or helicopters today. We wanted to build a product that was built around mass transit so that a lot of people could use it. So you didn't have to be just physically fit to get into the, into the

aircraft that anyone could use it. So, those types of challenges too, that you don't quite see yet because you're not experiencing getting in our aircraft and getting in somebody else's.

But there are things like that, that not only are just, they look cool, but they're actually really functional. And that has attracted a certain group of people.

The celebrity stuff has been really great really since the very beginning, actually funny story.

One of the earliest investors of Archer was Jennifer Lopez. And so, JLo was an early investor. [Niki: What? JLo?] And so, that was like a, y’know, a connection, via A-Rod, which was via Mark Lorry, who's one of the early investors. And so, when people see

the design of the aircraft, people kind of go crazy. And so, same thing with Usher. So, when Usher saw the aircraft. He said, “Oh, my God, how do I get involved? And what can I do?” And so, we made that video together, which was really cool. And everybody always comes back and

it's like, “Geez, how did you get these people to do that?” But for Usher, he was launching his new album called ‘Coming Home,’ and the product kind of fit with what he was trying to do.

And so, he has been able to keep his career going, over 30 years, three decades staying super relevant. So, I think it, there was this emotional sense that he had connecting to the product that tied into the sort of the division that he has fo pushing things forward

like he has done in the music industry, which is the thing that's helped him stay relevant.

So, we can connect with people in a unique way that I think a lot of our competitors have not been able to. Niki: I mean, it's a great strategy, right? It's your sort of, targeting stakeholders in different ways. You've got the celebrity

endorsements because it looks really cool. You've got the, you know, the investor types who are like, “Wow, this is going to save me a ton of time flying back and forth.” And then you've got, for all the people living in DC, you have to get on a people

mover after we land at Dulles and then walk two miles, I mean, specifically through the United Terminal and then get in a taxi or an Uber. It's just sort of life changing the idea that you could do this and the idea that you start with these sort of elite stakeholders,

including the FAA but ultimately, this could provide a solution that helps millions of people.

Adam: Yeah. I mean, if you start to think about the helicopter market, you're like, okay, how many helicopters even exist? There's about 50, 000 helicopters globally, which is nothing. [Niki: Yeah. Like that’s not very many.] If you look, you look outside, I mean, Stellantis makes something

like, which is one of our big investors and partners make something like 600,000 cars a month.

And so, you start to think there's 50, 000 helicopters globally, it's nothing. Right. And so, every company combined, including civilian military. And so, all of a sudden you're like, geez, that's a pretty small market. But times call it, y’know, in our case, like 5 million in

aircraft, it's okay, decently sized market. And then you start to think, okay, what if those vehicles were lower cost? What if they were safer with that lower noise, just the helicopter market? What could that expand to? Most people look at it and say, well, that

could probably expand four or five times, or it could be two, 200, 250,000 helicopters out there.

Okay. That starts to get a little bit more interesting. That's not even talking about mass use, urban air mobility. There's vehicles in every city. And so, you start to think about. from the other side. Well, how many aircraft can we make? And so, okay,

typical when you look at the aviation industry, you're, I mean, I think Boeing delivered like 60 aircraft last quarter, something like that. So, you start to think about, geez, they're Niki: Six, zero? Adam: Six, zero. So when you

start to think about the size of a building even 50,000 vehicles, how do you aircraft, how do you even do that? So that's what really has attracted the auto industry. So, Stellantis, which is one of our biggest partners, has been an incredible group to work with to think big.

And so, their whole thing has been, look, a thousand aircraft is cool. That's fine. 2000 is cool. But how do we build a hundred thousand? How do we build a million? How do we go out there and actually change the world together? And so, the auto industry thinks that way because

they have, they produce a lot of vehicles. And so, there is a focus now that is on, “Okay, the product is great. We get it. It's, it's a safer, quieter, lower cost version of what exists today. Helicopters. Now, how do we make it accessible to everybody?” Because 50,000 eVTOLs,

flying cars is going to make, make it available to very, very few people. And so, how do we actually build something that's actually accessible to the masses?

That's where you start to talk about, y’know, how do you build hundreds of thousands or millions of these aircraft? And from that perspective, you have to really start thinking about new ways of manufacturing. So, manufacturing in a way that's closer to how the autos manufacture rather than

how the aviation industry manufactures, because there has not been a mass need for aviation manufacturing at scale since World War II. Niki: Mm-hmm. Well, and this, maybe we'll end on this, I mean, I know this is a long-term vision, right? You've got all of these, you've

got regulatory matters you're dealing with, you're looking at a global market, you're getting people interested at, at scale, you're getting the word out about Archer, but then for the vision you're talking about, you also won't have enough pilots. So, is the long-term vision unmanned?

Adam: Yeah. So, the, again, if I go back to the [chuckling] Steve Jobs iPhone reference, it's really hard for people to digest that because today people are not really that comfortable thinking about even getting into an unmanned, like a driverless car [Niki: Yeah], an

autonomous vehicle on the ground. So, thinking about it in the air is pretty scary for people to think about. So, certainly, if you think about it in the air, most of the technology exists today. Y’know, the, the pilots today, when they take off in the aircraft, they're

not sitting their hand on the stick the whole time. They're largely setting the coordinates and the planes largely fly themselves today. But the concept of, you don't see the pilot, right? And you don't see them what they're doing inside behind the door. But I think over time the

autonomy solutions will first start to reduce workload, the second will increase safety. So, they'll make sure you cannot like bump into something. For example, I have a Tesla, you know, FSD, you turn it on, It's really good. It will not bump into somebody in front of

you or to the side of you.That should be standard on every car. Meaning like, that should engage, you should never rear end anybody ever again. The technology exists today. So, similarly in the air, the technology exists on a lot of levels on how to fly these vehicles autonomously or remotely, there

could be pilots on the ground, of ways to do this. And so, I think over time that will happen. But I do think there's a big leap in consumer acceptance and regulatory acceptance for that to happen. But that's when you start talking about millions of vehicles or even hundreds of thousands where we'd

be very constrained from a pilot perspective. Niki: And that's where not just aviation, but you're going to have, I'm a huge super fan of driverless trucks. I just, you know, we have a shortage of drivers. They can do these long-distance routes with very little,

I mean, the technology exists today. They're running in Texas, but people are freaked out about the idea of these big trucks. I think probably that will socialize over the next however many years. And so, you'll be lifted by that too but in the short term,

you're doing pilots, all-electric. Looking at airports as the first use case and looking at other countries, and I'm excited about it. I'm genuinely excited. When I was at Uber, there were people kind of talking about this and looking at it, and I sort of didn't get the why,

but I feel like that's pretty clear now. Adam: Well, how about the “Why now?” So, that was the one that, y’know, everybody always asks me. It starts with first the core underlying technology of the batteries. Just had to get good enough. So, so the lithium-ion cells had

to become energy dense enough power dense enough to enable this to actually happen If you can't fly enough people far enough, then it's very hard to have an economically viable business, right?

You need to actually have create some type of value for people to pay you. So, that was the first thing that happened. The second thing that happened was you need a political will to do it And so, the geopolitics have certainly helped, meaning

it is very important to Congress to, I think, bipartisan to pretty much everybody that the US maintains its leadership position in aviation. And I think we should take the lessons of what's happened in the, the drone industry, and we lost our position to China this is again going to

play out where there are US Competitors and the, kind of, the only real viable competitors are Chinese competitors. And the question will be, can we get through the regulatory process, prove these vehicles are safe before China goes and

takes off and this becomes a big industry for them. To date, you've seen real, um, political will and regulatory support to do that. So, that's been number two. And then the third one was capital. It was all these things happened where they all just happened to work out

at the same time to enable it all happening today, which is why I'm thankful for the opportunity.

Niki: Oh, wonderful. Well, thank you so much again for taking the time while you're in D.C. to come in. And I'm, I'm super stoked about Archer, so we'll put some links so people can check it out. I'm huge on American competitiveness, so I'm fully behind this,

and that's a very bipartisan issue in DC. So, thank you for taking the time to come in and explain it. Adam: Thanks for having me here.