Vertical Aerospace Now Targets Full Certification of VX4 in 2026

It is of no sur­prise to hear that Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has put back its full cer­ti­fi­ca­tion sched­ule by one year from 2025 to 2026. A sim­i­lar deci­sion has been made by both Joby and Archer who back­tracked from 2024 to 2025.

In a let­ter to share­hold­ers, Ver­ti­cal explained, “Our pre­vi­ous guid­ance had been 2025, which was based on our best esti­mates at the time. Attempt­ing to pre­dict a date with cer­tain­ty when it is sev­er­al years away is chal­leng­ing and achiev­ing it depends on agree­ing com­pli­ance meth­ods for new tech­nol­o­gy with the author­i­ties.

“For instance, as we begin to con­sid­er our Means of Com­pli­ance with the CAA, we will work through fac­tors out of our con­trol, such as the test­ing it requires for this tech­nol­o­gy. We believe the indus­try as a whole will expe­ri­ence some time­line cor­rec­tions and we are already see­ing signs of peers acknowl­edg­ing this.

“In light of our learn­ings and after com­plet­ing our review, we are now tar­get­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion by the end of 2026. We believe this will make us one of the first movers in the eVTOL mar­ket and we con­tin­ue to work close­ly, in our Joint Work­ing Groups, with our broad cus­tomer base to under­stand how they will oper­ate the VX4 in their mar­kets.” Its share price remains a HOLD from var­i­ous stock mar­ket ana­lysts.

Share­hold­ers’ Let­ter

https://s29.q4cdn.com/421996561/files/doc_financials/2023/q1/ver_SHL_Q1-2023_am_12.pdf

Mean­while, Ver­ti­cal released its Q1 2023 Finan­cial Report last week.

Oper­a­tional High­lights

: Ver­ti­cal received Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approval in March 2023 – the first list­ed eVTOL com­pa­ny to be grant­ed a DOA in the world. DOA affirms Vertical’s matur­ing cred­i­bil­i­ty as an aero­space com­pa­ny.

: Fol­low­ing a com­pre­hen­sive man­age­ment review, includ­ing exten­sive dis­cus­sions and align­ment with its sup­ply chain and reg­u­la­tors, Ver­ti­cal is now tar­get­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion by the end of 2026.

Finan­cial High­lights

: Ver­ti­cal report­ed a net oper­at­ing loss of UKP23 mil­lion for the three months end­ed March 31st, 2023, com­pared to a net oper­at­ing loss of UKP18 mil­lion for the three months end­ed March 31, 2022.

: This reflects invest­ments in the advance­ment of elec­tric bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy at the recent­ly opened Ver­ti­cal Ener­gy Cen­tre; achieve­ment of eVTOL Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approval with the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA); in addi­tion to design and test capa­bil­i­ties asso­ci­at­ed with the VX4 pro­to­type air­craft.

Finan­cial Out­look

: Net cash out­flows incurred in the sec­ond quar­ter of the year is in rela­tion to the advance­ment of the company’s air­borne flight test pro­gram and fur­ther invest­ment in its sec­ond full scale pro­to­type air­craft. The cap­i­tal plan for 2023 remains on track.

Stephen Fitz­patrick, Ver­ti­cal Founder and CEO, com­ment­ed, “We have achieved so much in this first quar­ter as we were grant­ed our Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approval from the CAA affirm­ing our home regulator’s con­fi­dence in our capa­bil­i­ties. While we have revised our tar­get cer­ti­fi­ca­tion date, the dili­gence and pre­ci­sion of the scop­ing work gives us ever more con­fi­dence that our strat­e­gy is the right one, and that we will be one of the first movers in the eVTOL mar­ket.”

Stephen Fitz­patrick

As expect­ed, finan­cial ana­lysts are most con­cerned about the company’s cash reserves. Does Ver­ti­cal have suf­fi­cient mon­ey going for­ward to cov­er the very high costs of fur­ther devel­op­ment and then man­u­fac­tur­ing? A wor­ry is that, like Lil­i­um, the com­pa­ny intends to under­take anoth­er fundraise this year to attract addi­tion­al cap­i­tal. As an eVTOL leader, only a few like Joby and Archer, remain in a stronger finan­cial posi­tion going for­ward.

Per­haps, this is why Ver­ti­cal’s stock price is lan­guish­ing at the low­ly val­ue of USD1.57 yes­ter­day, a far cry from its open­ing on the NYSE in Decem­ber 2021 of USD10. Although, ana­lysts offer­ing a 12-month price fore­cast for Ver­ti­cal have a medi­an tar­get of USD5.11 or a 185 per­cent increase from its present val­ue.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://vertical-aerospace.com

(Top image: Ver­ti­cal Aero­space)