Getting an aircraft certified and then scaling up manufacturing is extraordinarily difficult. The most likely exit plan for Joby and other eVTOL start-ups has always been to demonstrate technical viability and then get acquired by Airbus or one of the other big aerospace companies for the IP.
Or automotive, the large aerospace OEMs could do it themselves. Bad news for those start-ups is the push to EVs really heated up by now, automotive OEMs have their hands full.
Those IP acquisitions are tricky so. The IP has to be really advanced and good, say A220 good, and even then the question remains if the price will even close to the total funding those companies got.
