Imagine booking a ride to the airport and gliding over traffic in near-silence. Your app confirms the gate, the aircraft lands on a rooftop pad, and you’re at check-in minutes later. That future is why Joby sits in a ROBO Global index across two key subsectors: autonomous systems and logistics automation, areas which will increasingly see synergy and overlap as they reduce friction in the world. Joby is a pioneer and leader in electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (EVTOL), which could supersede the helicopter in many applications and expand the market.
A Go-to-Market Shortcut: Blade
Joby just agreed to acquire Blade’s consumer mobility business for up to $125 million. Blade flew more than 50,000 passengers last year across 12 urban terminals, including dedicated lounges at JFK, Newark, and multiple Manhattan heliports. Blade’s CEO Rob Wiesenthal will continue to run the passenger business as a Joby subsidiary. This gives Joby instant infrastructure, a repeat flier base, and a real network to seed early electric service while ElevateOS, Joby’s operations software, slots in behind the scenes.
Middle East First: Dubai & Beyond
Dubai is Joby’s beachhead. The company holds a six-year exclusive agreement with Dubai’s Roads & Transport Authority (RTA) and has already delivered its first production aircraft to the emirate ahead of a planned 2026 launch. Routes like Dubai International (DXB) to Palm Jumeirah drop from a 45-minute drive to roughly a dozen minutes by air. Abu Dhabi is laying groundwork in parallel, giving Joby a two-city springboard in the region.
Saudi Arabia is opening too. Joby signed an MoU with Abdul Latif Jameel to explore distribution, building on earlier work with local operators. The prize is regional connectivity in a geography tailor-made for short hops between economic hubs.
Strategic Worldwide Commercial Airline Partnerships
Delta’s multicity partnership with Joby gives customers a premium “door-to-door” option that stitches air taxis into airport journeys. The deal is exclusive in both the U.S. and U.K. for at least five years after commercial launch. In March, Virgin Atlantic joined the U.K. rollout, bringing booking and brand muscle where Delta is a co-owner.
In August, Joby and Japan’s All Nippon Airways expanded their partnership. The plan: a joint venture and deployment of more than 100 aircraft across Japan, with public demo flights at Expo 2025 Osaka starting October 1. Tokyo comes first, followed by a wider metro network.
Defense Credibility
Joby deepened its military ties with L3Harris. The pair will develop an optionally piloted, hybrid Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) for defense missions, with flight testing slated to start soon. This builds on Joby’s multi-year work with the U.S. Air Force and adds a second platform path beside the all-electric air taxi. Last year, Joby did a fully autonomous flight path that included takeoff and landing from five airbases.
Certification & Production: Real, Measurable Progress
Joby says its first conforming aircraft is entering final assembly for FAA Type Inspection Authorization flight testing. Company pilots are expected to fly it this year, followed by FAA pilots as part of the fifth and final stage of type certification. That keeps the U.S. timeline aligned with the FAA’s Innovate28 push to have EVTOLs ready for high-visibility operations by 2028.
Key partner and investor Toyota Industries is the manufacturing backbone. The automaker added $500 million to its investment in late 2024 and is now a co-developer on powertrain components and production scaling. For an emerging category, that kind of industrial partner reduces execution risk.
What the Aircraft Can Do Today
Joby’s piloted five-seat EVTOL targets a top speed of about 200 mph and battery-electric range around 150 miles, validated by long-range test flights. Independent testing with NASA found flyover noise levels around 45 dBA, quieter than a typical conversation, which matters when you plan to operate inside cities.
Why Autonomy Turns This Into a Platform
Joby acquired Xwing’s autonomy division in 2024. Add that to air taxi operations and you have the beginnings of a system where autonomy spans ground and air. Once vehicles navigate with machine precision and the network optimizes flows in real time, you unlock a platform effect. The smartphone did that for mobility by enabling services like Uber on top. Autonomy plus electrification can do the same for multimodal transport: scheduled airport runs that sync with airline itineraries, autonomous last-mile vans picking up arriving passengers, drone logistics feeding hospitals from rooftop pads, and dynamic pricing that balances skies and streets.
Eventually and ultimately, we will be in a much more autonomous world that enables people to do more for less. The industry experts supporting the ROBO Global index suite look for these pioneers and leaders paving the path towards this future. Joby and Toyota Industries are constituents of the ROBO Global Robotics and Automation Index (ROBO).
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ROBO is the underlying index for the ROBO Global Robotics & Automation ETF (ROBO), the L&G ROBO Global Robotics and Automation UCITS ETF (ROBO.LN), and the Global X ROBO Global Robotics & Automation ETF (ROBO.AU).
VettaFi is the index provider for the ROBO ETFs, for which it receives an index licensing fee. However, the ROBO ETFs are not issued, sponsored, endorsed, or sold by VettaFi. VettaFi and its affiliates have no obligation or liability in connection with the issuance, administration, marketing, or trading of the ROBO ETFs.
