Joby Aviation receives $9.8 million CalCompetes Grant to support company’s statewide expansion, creating 690 new jobs

Joby Avi­a­tion has been award­ed a $9.8 mil­lion Cal­i­for­nia Com­petes grant by the Governor’s Office of Busi­ness and Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment (GO-Biz).

The fund­ing will assist in financ­ing a sig­nif­i­cant expan­sion of Joby’s facil­i­ties in Mari­na — sup­port­ing high­er man­u­fac­tur­ing vol­umes and ini­tial train­ing for pilots and air­craft main­tain­ers — as well as con­tin­ued hir­ing at the Company’s oth­er offices locat­ed in San Car­los and San­ta Cruz.

As part of the agree­ment, Joby has also com­mit­ted to invest $41.3 mil­lion and cre­ate 690 addi­tion­al full-time jobs in the state by 2027.

JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and CEO of Joby, said: “We’re hon­oured to receive a pres­ti­gious Cal­Com­petes grant from our home state of Cal­i­for­nia to sup­port pilot train­ing and the growth of our man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ties in advance of ear­ly oper­a­tions.

“Joby was found­ed in 2009, today employs more than 1,250 peo­ple across the state, and we’re thrilled to be able to keep grow­ing in Cal­i­for­nia as we deliv­er rev­o­lu­tion­ary emis­sions-free flight.”

The Cal­Com­petes grant enables Joby to accel­er­ate ear­ly man­u­fac­tur­ing in Cal­i­for­nia to sup­port the Company’s ongo­ing type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gram with the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion as well as for ini­tial com­mer­cial oper­a­tions, expect­ed to begin in 2025.

While Joby plans to man­u­fac­ture air­craft in sup­port of ini­tial oper­a­tions from its Cal­i­for­nia-based facil­i­ties, the Com­pa­ny announced in Sep­tem­ber it will locate its first scaled man­u­fac­tur­ing plant in Day­ton, Ohio, the birth­place of avi­a­tion.

Joby plans to build a facil­i­ty in Day­ton capa­ble of deliv­er­ing up to 500 air­craft per year, sup­port­ing up to 2,000 clean man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs.

Cal­i­for­nia Sen­a­tor Anna Caballero, said: “This grant to Joby for their planned man­u­fac­tur­ing expan­sion in Mari­na, Cal­i­for­nia affirms California’s com­mit­ment to build the future of advanced air mobil­i­ty through a part­ner­ship with gov­ern­ment, com­mu­ni­ty, and indus­try, which I like to describe as the Mari­na Way.

“The Mari­na Way can be a mod­el for how we solve cli­mate, hous­ing, and trans­porta­tion chal­lenges. The pas­sage of my leg­is­la­tion, SB800, will lay out the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty. I am glad to see that Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty will take flight by 2025.”

Bruce Del­ga­do, May­or of Mari­na, added: “Mari­na is excit­ed that, with this Cal­Com­petes grant, Joby will be able to expand their pro­duc­tion capa­bil­i­ties at our Mari­na Munic­i­pal Air­port, cre­at­ing hun­dreds of new, local jobs.

“The fund­ing will also sup­port Joby in expand­ing their research and devel­op­ment hub here in Mari­na and con­tin­ue their suc­cess as a leader in the eVTOL indus­try.”

Ear­li­er this month, Joby per­formed its first exhi­bi­tion flights out­side of Cal­i­for­nia, becom­ing one of the first com­pa­nies to fly an elec­tric air taxi in New York City, as part of an event held by the city’s lead­er­ship announc­ing their intent to elec­tri­fy the icon­ic Down­town Man­hat­tan Heli­port to enable clean, qui­et air trav­el.