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Joby, Toyota Expand Collaboration with Long-Term Supply Agreement for Key Powertrain and Actuation Components

Joby Avi­a­tion announced today it has signed a long-term agree­ment with Toy­ota Motor Cor­po­ra­tion to sup­ply key pow­er­train and actu­a­tion com­po­nents for the pro­duc­tion of Joby’s eVTOL, reports a press release.

“The agree­ment builds on the long-stand­ing part­ner­ship between Joby and Toy­ota,” states the release, “which has seen the two com­pa­nies part­ner on a wide vari­ety of projects to sup­port the pro­duc­tion and assem­bly of the Joby air­craft, includ­ing advis­ing on the design of its Cal­i­forn­ian pilot pro­duc­tion line in Mari­na.” Toy­ota is also the eVTOL company’s largest exter­nal share­hold­er, hav­ing invest­ed around USD400 mil­lion in the firm.

JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and CEO of Joby, com­ment­ed, “Our part­ner­ship with Toy­ota con­tin­ues to be an inte­gral part of Joby’s suc­cess as we work togeth­er to deliv­er a new form of fast, qui­et and emis­sions-free mobil­i­ty for cities and com­mu­ni­ties around the world.” He con­tin­ued, “Their exper­tise and knowl­edge has helped put us on track to deliv­er, at scale, an air­craft that we believe is tru­ly best-in-class.”

The com­po­nents, designed by Joby and man­u­fac­tured by Toy­ota, will be deliv­ered to the eVTOLs pow­er­train and elec­tron­ics man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty in San Car­los, Cal­i­for­nia, before the fin­ished assem­blies are shipped to the pilot pro­duc­tion line in Mari­na for inte­gra­tion.  The release con­tin­ues, “Intend­ed to prove out scal­able tool­ing and process­es at low vol­umes in advance of air­craft pro­duc­tion at full scale, Joby’s Mari­na facil­i­ties were designed with Toyota’s help, lever­ag­ing decades of expe­ri­ence deliv­er­ing reli­able, high-qual­i­ty cars at high vol­ume.”

Kei­ji Yamamo­to

Kei­ji Yamamo­to, Pres­i­dent of Toy­ota Motor Cor­po­ra­tion, remarked, “We are very pleased to have reached this mile­stone with our key part­ner.  Our mutu­al goal is mass pro­duc­tion of the eVTOL and assist­ing Joby apply the best prac­tices of the Toy­ota Pro­duc­tion Sys­tem in meet­ing high qual­i­ty, reli­a­bil­i­ty, safe­ty, and strict cost stan­dards.” Adding, “We are excit­ed about the poten­tial for fur­ther col­lab­o­ra­tion as we seek to realise Mobil­i­ty for All with a seam­less­ly inte­grat­ed air-to-ground mobil­i­ty net­work.”

Mean­while, Joby is work­ing with Toy­ota sub­sidiary Aero Asahi on an air taxi shut­tle ser­vice for Toy­ota relat­ed pas­sen­gers in Japan. Joby recent­ly announced it has for­mal­ly applied to the Japan Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau (JCAB) to val­i­date its planned Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) air­craft type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

For more infor­ma­tion

www.jobyaviation.com

https://global.toyota/en/

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