All of these are solvable problems:
* With short-hop flights. Swap out batteries at the destination, and slow-charge
* Endurance. You don't want batteries discharging below 20%. In an emergency, you do.
* Take-off power surge. Super-cap, ground effect, or plug-in power supply during take-off.
* I don't think the crash requirements need to compare to commercial aviation, but to cars. This is competing with cars.
I'm not saying Joby will get this right, but I think eventually, someone will.
A likely mistake seems to be trying to get this off-the-ground in the US regulatory climate. It'd be much easier to do this in a friendlier regime, more tolerant of occasional crashes, get experience, and move into Western markets after the concept is validated. California seems like just about the worst place to start.
As an investment, if you think they have a 1% chance of becoming Tesla, that merits a $10B valuation to be risk-neutral. The investment levels don't seem crazy. Personally, I wouldn't place their odds at anywhere close to 50%, but I'd place them at much greater than 1%.
* With short-hop flights. Swap out batteries at the destination, and slow-charge
* Endurance. You don't want batteries discharging below 20%. In an emergency, you do.
* Take-off power surge. Super-cap, ground effect, or plug-in power supply during take-off.
* I don't think the crash requirements need to compare to commercial aviation, but to cars. This is competing with cars.
I'm not saying Joby will get this right, but I think eventually, someone will.
A likely mistake seems to be trying to get this off-the-ground in the US regulatory climate. It'd be much easier to do this in a friendlier regime, more tolerant of occasional crashes, get experience, and move into Western markets after the concept is validated. California seems like just about the worst place to start.
As an investment, if you think they have a 1% chance of becoming Tesla, that merits a $10B valuation to be risk-neutral. The investment levels don't seem crazy. Personally, I wouldn't place their odds at anywhere close to 50%, but I'd place them at much greater than 1%.