Joby Aviation to Build Air Taxi Assembly Plant in Ohio

DAYTON, OH—Joby Aviation Inc. plans to build a $500 million factory here to produce electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. The facility, scheduled to open in 2025, will be located in the same city where Orville and Wilbur Wright developed and built their first aeroplanes in the early 1900s. The brothers also opend the first airplane factory in the U.S. here in 1910.

“We’re building the future of aviation right where it all started,” says JoeBen Bevirt, CEO of Joby Aviation. “The Wright Brothers harnessed revolutionary technology of their time to open up the skies, and we intend to do the same—this time, bringing quiet and emissions-free flight that we hope will have an equally profound impact on our world.”

Joby’s battery-powered aircraft is designed to transport a pilot and four passengers at speeds of up to 200 mph, with a maximum range of 100 miles. It also plans to operate these aircraft as part of aerial ridesharing networks in cities and communities around the world, starting in 2025, building on partnerships it has developed with Delta Air Lines and Uber.

Austin has been senior editor for ASSEMBLY Magazine since September 1999. He has more than 21 years of b-to-b publishing experience and has written about a wide variety of manufacturing and engineering topics. Austin is a graduate of the University of Michigan.

The ASSEMBLY Show South

ASSEMBLY is thrilled to return to the Music City Center in Nashville, TN for The ASSEMBLY Show SOUTH on May 1-2, 2024. This is a booming time for manufacturing and the U.S. South is right in the heart of the action. According to ASSEMBLY’s most recent annual capital spending survey, the South is projected to account for 31 percent of total spending this year, marking the fifth straight year this region has accounted for at least 30 percent of capital spending in the U.S.

In this session, manufacturers will learn how Quality function deployment (QFD) can transform consumers’ qualitative demands into quantitative parameters that will shape the design of their product and, ultimately, their manufacturing process.

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