Construction is now underway on the world’s first high-volume electric Vertical Take Off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft manufacturing facility, which is a partnership between Stellantis in Auburn Hills and Archer Aviation in California.
The announcement about the plant, which is located on an approximately 100-acre campus in Covington, Ga., was made today at the Paris Air Show.
Stellantis officials also revealed the automaker recently increased its ownership position in Archer Aviation through a series of purchases of stock in the open market.
“The Stellantis and Archer teams are moving full speed ahead in execution mode to ensure we meet our goal of bringing scalable manufacturing of Archer’s aircraft online in mid-2024,” says Carlos Tavares, CEO of Stellantis.
“We believe this unique partnership is setting the standard for cross-industry collaboration and continues to be a key pillar of our strategy to ensure Stellantis leads the way the world moves, providing freedom of mobility in all ways. With our trusted teams onsite working shoulder to shoulder with Archer, I have no doubt that we are on the right path.”
During the manufacturing ramp-up phase, the goal is to use each company’s strengths to enable the rapid scaling of aircraft production to meet Archer’s commercialization plans. The goal is to bring this facility online in mid-2024.
“At Archer, our goal is not just to get to commercialization, but to achieve it at scale,” says Adam Goldstein, founder and CEO of Archer Aviation. “High-volume manufacturing is critical to ensuring we can meet this goal, and joining forces with one of the leading mobility companies in the world is helping us realize the once-in-a-generation opportunity we have to redefine urban transportation.”
To help make that possible, experienced Stellantis personnel are working full-time alongside the Archer team, supporting operational readiness with the current focus on manufacturing, automation, and component sourcing. Stellantis personnel are embedded across almost all areas of Archer’s operations, including manufacturing, engineering, supply chain, quality, facilities, and human resources.
Initial manufacturing operations will be capable of producing up to 650 aircraft per year with room for expansion to support production of up to 2,300 aircraft per year. Manufacturing aircraft at these volumes would make this site the world’s leading aircraft manufacturing facility by volume.
