JOBY is a high-potential buy after a 52% drop; expected to grow 10x+ over the next decade due to eVTOL market leadership.

But let's delve deeper into the stock I bought the largest portion of this month, which is Joby Aviation. If you are not familiar with Joby Aviation, they manufacture this electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft .

Therefore, it takes off just like a helicopter. In fact, the aircraft has six rotors. In theory, it would be much safer than flying a helicopter, because if one of them malfunctions, it will be able to land safely, and it is also capable of flying in a manner similar to conventional airplanes when moving horizontally.

The way I like to think about it is: it takes off like a helicopter, and flies a little more like a private jet.

When you combine these two things, you get a very large and targetable market for Joby Aviation. The way they will introduce these products to the market, at least in the near term over the next few years, will be via air taxi.

So, you will be able to access Joby not only through their Blade service - which has not yet launched, but this is the path they are taking to bring it to market - but also through partnerships with companies like Uber and airlines around the world.

Now, Joby's stock hasn't had a very good year, having fallen 52% so far this year. But that's why I see an opportunity in it right now .

The management did a great job of raising capital when the share price was high . The market capitalization is currently around $6.7 billion . But I will review how much they have collected and the amount of cash on hand, because that is a real key to the business.

What you see here in blue is their total revenue, which amounted to $116 million over the past twelve months. This actually comes primarily from their acquisition of the company "Blade".

So, this is like a mini-Uber, but you use seaplanes in New York, and mainly helicopters in places like New York, and expensive places in Europe like Monaco. Therefore, there is little revenue coming from that business, and this lays the foundation for what Joby Aviation will be like in the long run.

But the other thing to look at here is net income in orange, which is negative by about $900 million over the past twelve months. Negative free cash flow of $743 million. Therefore, this is not a stable company yet.

This is still essentially a pre- revenue-generating company. It's not necessarily the right type of stock for everyone, but if you're an ambitious investor and you're thinking about companies that will increase in value 10 times or more over the next decade or 20 years, and actually determine how we move around the world, then I think this could be one of those innovative companies.

So why should we be so excited about Joby Aviation? I want to review some of the things that represent a real turning point for Joby in the near term this year.

This is a quote from their second quarter earnings report . I am pleased to confirm that next month, that is, this month, September, they intend to complete their first EIP trips in Texas .

This is the White House program that accelerated the development of electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft . So, this is one of the companies that will benefit from this.

It is written here that they expect flights to progress from having only a pilot on board to carrying non- paying passengers. This will be the next step , and eventually, transporting passengers who pay for the ride.

Let's move on to the end here. I am pleased to confirm that we continue to target the transport of our first passengers this year. I don't know if they will be paying passengers or not, but it's a big step for Joby Aviation.

So, I think the big difference between these two companies is that Joby focuses on one thing. Their primary business is to access the market with an electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) air taxi .

They bought Blade last year. This will provide them with the kind of network they need. Which airstrips do they own in specific locations, as well as a list of customers who will use those aircraft.

Now their task is to get approval from the Federal Aviation Administration for them, and start manufacturing more of them. They aim to produce about two per month by the end of 2026, and four per month by the end of 2027, and then expand the scope of this work.

But the first step is getting to these operational checkpoints where you actually transport toll- paying commercial customers in small numbers in some cities.

I want to review how profitable these aircraft are. This is an excerpt from an article I wrote about asymmetric investing. If you're wondering why I'm making this move, this is my justification for increasing my stake in Joby Aviation this month.

So I wanted to do some simple preliminary calculations, as I like to call them. We don't know exactly what those numbers will be, but you have to think about the cost of manufacturing a single aircraft on Joby, what the potential revenue is , and ultimately how profitable it is.

Regarding the cost of the aircraft, if we go back to their agreements from a few years ago, they talked about about $1.5 million as the cost per aircraft . I think this number is probably too low .

But we obtained this memorandum of understanding with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and that was just last year, a little over a year ago. What they mentioned is the possibility of supplying up to 200 electric aircraft and related services .

So, these aircraft and services together are valued at approximately one billion dollars. So, you just need to divide the billion dollars by 200 planes. You will receive approximately $5 million per aircraft .

We hope this is an exaggerated estimate of the cost of the aircraft. But initially at least, these aircraft will be more expensive than they will be as the company expands.

So, how much revenue can be generated? Okay, here we have again a little bit of data from Blade. So, what I estimated is that you have four seats on the plane. The aircraft can make 20 flights per day.

You get about $250 per seat . This may seem like a large sum. This brings you up to $20,000 in revenue per day, but it's probably more reasonable than you think. The two examples I have given in this article are flying from Manhattan to the Hamptons , which will cost you approximately $1,200, and more than $1,200 with taxes and fees.

Now , this was on a seaplane, but the costs of flying in a helicopter are similar. If you take a helicopter, on a 5-minute flight from JFK Airport to Manhattan, it will cost you $195.

Again, you can make many of these trips in a single day using a Bell helicopter . So, again, at least initially, you can probably expect around $250 per seat on Joby Air flights. We'll see if they are able to fill these seats.

So, we get to four seats and then we make 20 trips a day. That's a fairly large number. But if you look at an operating period of 10 hours and two trips per hour, I think that's a very reasonable estimate when we consider how much revenue they could generate.

What are the operating costs? We don't know exactly, but I've set aside $5,000 a day for operating costs. Therefore, the operating profit will be $15,000 per aircraft. This equates to $5.5 million before depreciation and amortization.

So, the cost of one plane is $5 million . Operating profit or growing operating profit is approximately $5.5 million. The capital recovery period will be approximately one year for the aircraft.

Those are truly exceptional economics for Joby Airlines once they reach that stage.

But there are two things Joby needs to do to achieve any kind of expansion and actually become profitable. I mentioned that negative free cash flow. This presents a real challenge for them.

I will move on to the balance sheet in a little while.

Let's take a look at how to expand the scope of this work. Their ultimate goal is to reach a production of approximately 500 aircraft per year. One way they will achieve this, as I mentioned, is that they have a vision to reach around 48 aircraft per year, but they need to expand more quickly, and this is where the partnership with Toyota Motor Corporation, their largest investor, comes in.

They announced the start of a joint venture between these two companies. Joby Aviation will primarily present its design . This project will be financed equally, but Toyota will bring its expertise in production systems and operational excellence, hoping to manufacture these aircraft not only on a large scale , but also at a relatively low cost .

This also removes a lot of the burden from Joby Airlines, which theoretically had to finance all of this itself according to its previous business model . So, we now have a partnership on the manufacturing side, not on the operations side when building these aircraft, but on the manufacturing side.

The other thing they did was bring in partners on the expansion side. Adams Inc., a company founded by Travis Kalanick, is still in the venture capital stage and not currently publicly traded, but it is now partnering with Joby Air.

They are essentially building these vertical airports ( virtaports), which are transfer hubs. Let's say, for example, that you traveled to the Dallas area and want to go somewhere that is 15 or 20 miles from Dallas Airport.

You can take an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft to this airfield and then ride a self- driving electric vehicle. That is sort of the vision of the Adams Corporation.

And again, they will be jointly funding these projects. There are fewer details about what they look like , but this is the picture they shared, saying, " Hey, you know?" We can just build these facilities anywhere.

These look like parking lot ramps. There are helicopter landing pads above many of these parking ramps . So now you can build this infrastructure where there is a helipad on the roof, and then eventually you can ride a self- driving vehicle.

These self- driving vehicles will then have charging stations and possibly maintenance stations, and things like that . So this becomes your hub for mobility, and it starts again to build the network that you will actually work with .

Now, Joby Aviation is in the middle of the scene. They are designing the aircraft. They receive assistance from Toyota to expand their manufacturing operations. They receive assistance from Adams in expanding the operations and infrastructure needed to run these aircraft, but they will have very strong economics of the aircraft themselves, which they will effectively own and operate as Joby Aviation under this model.

So we hope the story will begin to form meaning about how this work has evolved in the long term. We are approaching the point where they will reach the point of commercial operations.

Then you need to start building this air taxi network. You just need to start building the manufacturing and infrastructure to actually operate those air taxis . All of these things are somewhat arranged, but a lot of cash will be spent in the meantime.

This is why the management's decision to sell shares and even sell a little debt was so important over the past year or so. They now have approximately $2.3 billion in cash on their balance sheet.

This is as of the end of the second quarter. There is approximately $700 million in debt. But you can see that this gives you about three years' operating rate based on the current free cash flow burning rate.

There is another wave of investment coming from Toyota. So this cash balance will increase slightly over the next few quarters, but that should give them at least two or three years of time to prove they can manufacture these aircraft.

And that people actually use them for transportation.

Here's what the economics of unity look like. And I think in the long run when you look at the economics of a single aircraft, at a potential cost of $5 million with an additional contribution margin of about $5.5 million.

I think Joby Aviation's economics might be truly amazing . Once the market starts to see this long- term potential, I think it will be easier for them to raise capital if needed in the long run.

But I think those partnerships they have will be extremely important. Therefore, the stock did not perform well in 2026. I think that is certainly obvious. A 52% decrease last year alone.

But when you look at JobyAir's potential to become a leader in short-haul travel—those longer distances in a self-driving vehicle, which are shorter than flying on a commercial airliner— you'll find a huge market for JobyAir to fill.

I think they will be the first to enter the market. They will have the advantage of being first in the market. They will be able to build a sustainable growth model for investors.