Archer Aviation announced Wednesday it has closed financing and development deals for the construction of its electric aircraft manufacturing plant in Covington.
Since March, Archer has been building a 350,000-square foot plant to build electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft next to Covington Municipal Airport, about an hour east of Atlanta. The plant is expected to be completed next year, and to eventually create more than 1,000 jobs.
Credit: Source: Archer Aviation
Credit: Source: Archer Aviation
Santa Clara, California-based Archer said the $65 million financing deal with Columbus-based Synovus Financial Corp. is for a “substantial majority” of the cost of construction for the first phase. Archer has also struck a design-build agreement with Alpharetta-based Evans General Contractors LLC for development of the facility.
Archer is one of the key startups seeking to develop a new market of electric aircraft — known as eVTOL aircraft ― for air taxi service to transport people within cities, avoiding road traffic.
Founded in 2018, it has raised over $1 billion in funding and has been publicly traded since 2021. The startup company is not yet profitable as it is investing heavily in aircraft development.
The company is developing a piloted four-passenger eVTOL aircraft called Midnight and is working toward Federal Aviation Administration certification of the aircraft in 2025. It is building several test aircraft in California, and will later move manufacturing to the Georgia plant for high-volume production.
Credit: Source: Archer Aviation
Credit: Source: Archer Aviation
In Covington, Archer has been grading the site and plans to soon begin pouring concrete. It is building the facility to eventually produce as many as 650 aircraft annually, while there’s room for a second phase of construction to expand the plant to as much as 900,000 square feet to build more than 2,000 aircraft per year.
Archer said last year that it will get an incentive package worth about one-third of its $118 million capital investment commitment, including tax incentives and a Georgia Regional Economic Business Assistance grant.
The company has a deal with Stellantis, the automaker formed in the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot, as a manufacturing partner and investor. It also has an agreement to share flight test data with the U.S. Department of Defense and to send several of its aircraft to the U.S. Air Force for military use.
For its planned commercial air taxi service, Archer has partnered with United Airlines, and announced plans last year to launch service in 2025 from Manhattan to Newark Liberty International Airport.
Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines has partnered with a different eVTOL developer, Joby Aviation, with the idea of eventually transporting passengers from their homes to hubs in New York and Los Angeles to connect to Delta flights.
