Dive Brief:

• Joby Aviation and the Toyota Motor Corp. have reached a stockholders’ agreement to establish an air mobility joint venture to produce Joby’s S4 Series electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, according to a joint press release on Tuesday.
• The new entity, dubbed Joby Toyota Aero Manufacturing Preparation Co., will combine Joby’s expertise in electric aviation with Toyota’s knowledge of production systems and facilitating operations.
• Under the agreement, Joby will purchase shares valued at $980,000, representing 49% ownership of the joint venture, per a securities filing. Toyota will buy shares valued at $1.02 million, making it the majority owner with a 51% stake.

Dive Insight:

Joby and Toyota have also entered into an exclusive manufacturing supply contract as well as commercial and intellectual property agreements, according to the securities filing. Furthermore, Joby is expected to grant JTAMPC exclusive rights to manufacture the S4 Series aircraft, subject to certain exceptions set forth in the manufacturing supply contract. 

As part of the agreement, Toyota will provide the joint venture a royalty-free license to develop manufacturing IP, as well as authority to use the automaker’s background manufacturing IP for a fee.

Additionally, the joint entity will retain ownership of any IP it develops and third-party IP created for JTAMPC. The company will also give Joby and Toyota royalty-free licenses to use any of its IP for its products and services.

JTAMPC’s headquarters will be located in Marina, California, which will be close to Joby’s home base in nearby Santa Cruz. The new company is required to collaborate with Joby under the terms of the agreement, a Toyota spokesperson said in an email.

Joby has additive and subtractive manufacturing, training, machining, aircraft assembly and flight test facilities in Marina, according to a securities filing. The eVTOL maker also operates a powertrain and electronics engineering and manufacturing facility in San Carlos, California. 

The joint venture will work on a global manufacturing plan that could include other locations to further scale up production, the Toyota spokesperson said. Joby has a high-rate production site in Dayton, Ohio, which the company expanded in 2024 and again in January, with plans to increase its footprint at the site.

The companies provided details on how many executive leaders and board of director members would make up the joint venture, but did not disclose any names in the securities filing. Toyota and Joby will form the joint venture’s business plan as well as further negotiate the manufacturing supply contract and other agreements. 

The new company is part of Toyota and Joby’s strategic alliance initially announced in October 2024. The collaboration aims to streamline manufacturing operations for commercial production and focuses on costs, quality and boosting productivity.

The joint venture was not included in the announcement, but the companies have been finalizing terms of their agreement, which they signed on Monday, a Toyota spokesperson said.

Toyota has supported Joby since 2017, the automaker’s spokesperson said. 

“It has been Joby’s and Toyota’s desire from the beginning of the collaboration to ultimately lean on Toyota for high volume manufacturing,” the spokesperson added. “Up to now, Toyota has been involved in supporting Joby in the form of providing side‑by‑side assistance in the development of aircraft production technologies.”

Additionally, the alliance will back Joby’s production capacity expansion to help the company achieve certification with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and address the growing demand for eVTOL aircraft. The U.S. Department of Transportation released its Advanced Air Mobility National Strategy in December 2025 in an effort to expand transit options, leverage new technologies, create jobs, develop the aviation manufacturing workforce and recruit aerospace engineers.