FIA2024 Joby Aviation: “Maybe it’s Time to Let the Old Ways Die!” (A Star is Born)

The impres­sion the nascent eVTOL indus­try gave at the Farn­bor­ough Air­show this year was one of excite­ment and enthu­si­asm, but above all of a new and bold con­fi­dence. It is grow­ing up fast, very fast indeed, and Joby Avi­a­tion is at the fore­front of this green avi­a­tion move­ment.

The company’s impres­sive large stand in Hall 4 not only dis­played its full-size eVTOL that is being pre­pared for com­mer­cial flight, hope­ful­ly next year, but there was a big-sized screen offer­ing videos of the craft in flight, edu­cat­ing the pub­lic about Urban Air Mobil­i­ty and Joby’s place with­in it. 

There were free­bies like a cloth bag, a wood­en encased pen, stick­er and jack­et patch; the pro­mo­tion of a near­by cafe, the type that peo­ple may expe­ri­ence in many future ver­ti­ports; but most enter­pris­ing a sim­u­la­tor, allow­ing the pub­lic to expe­ri­ence what it’s like to fly a Joby eVTOL along­side a very poignant audio close by that proves just how qui­et the air­craft is dur­ing flight com­pared to a heli­copter or plane. Founder and CEO, JoeBen Bevirt’s famous quote, “As qui­et as whis­per­ing leaves” is spot-on.  

Peo­ple thronged around the stand, excit­ed to be there. Joby offered an oppor­tu­ni­ty for them to sit in the craft’s cock­pit, where a tiny cam­era, fit­ted on the front dash­board, took an image, which then was seam­less­ly down­loaded on to their mobile.

Dur­ing the five day event, lead­ing staff mem­bers like Bon­ny Simi and Bri­an Gar­rett-Glaser were on hand to answer the public’s ques­tions, while Bevirt was involved with Forum dis­cus­sions and talk­ing to the media.

The whole Joby expe­ri­ence echoes the film A Star is Born, when the main char­ac­ter Jack, says, “Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die….” 

There­fore, it is apt that Joby released a press release this week enti­tled, “A Look Back at Joby’s Impact in 2023.” This is not a boast or a brag, but anoth­er sign of the com­pa­ny’s grow­ing con­fi­dence.

Joby ticks every green box, diver­si­ty box, edu­ca­tion­al box, com­mu­ni­ty box, good egg box… in fact, there are even box­es ticked that aren’t wide­ly known about yet. Safe­ty of flight is para­mount, of course, as the com­pa­ny’s, per­haps per­ceived man­i­festo, por­trays. 

Enter­prise Safe­ty Man­age­ment Sys­tem: We are active­ly devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing an enter­prise-wide safe­ty man­age­ment sys­tem (SMS) to ensure safe­ty over­sight and improve­ment in all areas in line with our type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion efforts.

Air­craft Design: The safe­ty of our pilots, pas­sen­gers and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties has been a guid­ing prin­ci­ple in the design and devel­op­ment of our air­craft from the very begin­ning. Com­pared to tra­di­tion­al sin­gle-pro­peller air­planes and heli­copters, the Joby air­craft has greater redun­dan­cy across flight-crit­i­cal sys­tems to guard against fail­ure.

Flight Oper­a­tions: We had two flight oper­a­tions safe­ty pro­grams accept­ed by stan­dards-set­ting organ­i­sa­tions: the Inter­na­tion­al Busi­ness Avi­a­tion Coun­cil and the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Administration’s Vol­un­tary Safe­ty Man­age­ment Sys­tem (SMS) Pro­gram for Part 135 Air Car­ri­ers.

Team mem­ber safe­ty: We con­duct­ed over 4,000 hours of team mem­ber train­ing on key Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Admin­is­tra­tion (OSHA) prin­ci­ples.

And then the envi­ron­ment, a sub­ject very close to Bevirt’s heart.

GHG Inven­to­ry: We estab­lished our first glob­al Scope 1 and 2 green­house gas (GHG) inven­to­ry, allow­ing us to gain more insight into where we are today in terms of emis­sions and the places where we can work to improve.

Renew­able Elec­tric­i­ty: The major­i­ty of our GHG foot­print comes from our elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion.  To reduce our impact, we con­sumed 100% renew­able elec­tric­i­ty at our pri­ma­ry facil­i­ties in 2023. As we con­tin­ue to expand our busi­ness, Joby is com­mit­ted to using 100 per­cent renew­able elec­tric­i­ty for our pri­ma­ry facil­i­ties and at Joby-oper­at­ed Sky­ports, where avail­able.

Man­u­fac­tur­ing and Bat­tery Recy­cling: Joby recy­cled almost 60,000 pounds of man­u­fac­tur­ing waste includ­ing our test­ed bat­ter­ies. In part­ner­ship with Red­wood Mate­ri­als, we recy­cled 1,000 pound­sof dam­aged or abused lithi­um bat­ter­ies in 2023. We are already incor­po­rat­ing recy­cling into our process­es before we scale, and by estab­lish­ing this part­ner­ship now, we can ensure that both orga­ni­za­tions grow togeth­er.

Infra­struc­ture to Unlock Elec­tric Avi­a­tion: We con­duct­ed the first-ever exhi­bi­tion flights of an elec­tric air taxi in New York City, show­ing local stake­hold­ers what the future of trans­porta­tion could look – and sound – like. NYC May­or Eric Adams com­mit­ted to elec­tri­fy­ing the Down­town Man­hat­tan Heli­port, mark­ing a major step towards cre­at­ing an elec­tric avi­a­tion net­work in a major glob­al city.

Elec­tric Avi­a­tion Charg­ing Sys­tem: We released to indus­try the spec­i­fi­ca­tions of the Glob­al Elec­tric Avi­a­tion Charg­ing Sys­tem (GEACS), which Joby devel­oped to meet the unique needs of elec­tric air­craft. By work­ing towards broad indus­try adop­tion of GEACS, we aim to ensure the entire sec­tor is able to oper­ate safe­ly and effi­cient­ly while max­i­miz­ing the life of onboard bat­ter­ies.

While not for­get­ting the com­mu­ni­ty and how Joby’s grow­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing and busi­ness may impact on this.

Appren­tice­ship Pro­gram: We hired 63 appren­tices across 12 man­u­fac­tur­ing spe­cial­ties at our Cal­i­for­nia man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ties, with 71 per­cent of our 2023 appren­tices com­ing from under­rep­re­sent­ed racial/ethnic groups.

Diver­si­ty and Inclu­sion: We added 300 team mem­bers in 2023 and our US-based new hires were our most diverse to date, with 55 per­cent of new hires from under­rep­re­sent­ed racial/ethnic back­grounds. To sup­port our evolv­ing tal­ent pool, we estab­lished our first Employ­ee Resource Groups (ERGs) – Women of Joby and Joby Pride – in order to dri­ve equi­ty, increase rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and fos­ter com­mu­ni­ty and con­nec­tion across the com­pa­ny.

Edu­cat­ing and Inspir­ing: Through our exten­sive out­reach efforts in STEM and Career Tech­ni­cal Edu­ca­tion pro­grams, we engaged with more than 1,800 stu­dents to ensure that the next gen­er­a­tion of engi­neers, oper­a­tors, and tech­ni­cians have access to career oppor­tu­ni­ties in avi­a­tion.

Recog­ni­tion: We were iden­ti­fied by Newsweek as one of America’s Great­est Work­places for Diver­si­ty in 2023.

The AAM indus­try is in a good place right now and Farn­bor­ough show­cased this well. Com­pared to just two years ago, there were five eVTOLs on dis­play. And for each one the media were invit­ed to step inside their inte­ri­or and try out the seats for com­fort. 

The best one? Now that would be telling.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.jobyaviation.com

(Images: evtolinsights.com)

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