Archer Aviation (ACHR 4.12%) is a California-based start-up that's trying to take the Wright Brothers' radical idea of flight to another level: electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft used as air taxis.
Estimated by Morgan Stanley to be worth approximately $9 trillion by 2050, the eVTOL market is still in the nascent stages of growth. That kind of forecast makes Archer, which is trading at about $9 a share, seem like a potential millionaire maker. But is it? Is it worth a $500 investment?
NYSE: ACHR
Key Data Points
If you build it, they will (hopefully) come
Archer Aviation is on the cusp of commercializing its electric air taxi service. But the definition of "cusp" depends on whom you talk to.
From Archer's perspective, recent White House executive orders mandating the acceleration of eVTOL deployment indicate that it is close to making money from air taxis. This includes the White House's eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP), which could allow Archer to launch air taxi trials in major U.S. cities as early as 2026.
Archer Midnight aircraft. Image source source: Archer Aviation.
If you're looking at "cusp" through the eyes of a bearish investor, however, you might point out that the FAA's safety standards are notoriously unforgiving, and a new aircraft such as Archer's Midnight won't ferry paying passengers until the FAA is absolutely certain that it's safe.
Then comes the other unknown: Will people actually buy tickets? Of course, people will try it. But will enough demand for eVTOL services create the kind of trillion-dollar market that Morgan Stanley estimates? Or will this service be too pricey for the average American to consider?
If Archer has the economy of scale to price tickets right, saving time by whizzing through the air instead of crawling through traffic could be attractive enough to make this mid-cap stock seem cheap in retrospect. But that's a big if. The unknowns outweigh the givens today, which makes Archer a highly speculative bet and not one I'd suggest putting $500 into.
