AST SpaceMobile has been on a tear in 2025, but extensive runway remains as this satellite cellular phone technology company ramps up its commercialization efforts.
Archer Aviation remains a top contender among “flying taxi” stocks, and could be just a few years away from its actual “liftoff moment.”
Next year’s launch of lower-priced vehicles could be a game changer for fledgling EV maker Rivian Automotive.
When you think of industrial stocks, companies in old-school industries like steelmaking and machinery may first come to mind.
However, this sector encompasses many of the fastest-growing industries, including electric vehicles (EVs), flying taxis, and companies involved in commercializing outer space, also known as space stocks.
Hence, when it comes to the industrial stocks with the greatest potential to beat the market over the next five years, a few “new-school” names come to mind: Archer Aviation(NYSE: ACHR), AST SpaceMobile(NASDAQ: ASTS), and Rivian Automotive(NASDAQ: RIVN).
Image source: Getty Images.
Electric vertical takeoff and landing stocks, or eVTOL stocks, also known as “flying taxi” stocks, remained very popular throughout 2025. Yet while names like Archer Aviation have pulled back as of late, it’s premature to assume that Wall Street has put this trend in the rearview mirror.
In fact, over the past month alone, Archer has made significant progress in commercialization, including the formation of new manufacturing partnerships and progress in launching commercial air taxi services in both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.
Although Archer Aviation has remained a pre-revenue company throughout 2025, sell-side analyst forecasts suggest it will achieve its first year of significant revenue in 2026, with average sales forecasts of around $32 million. In 2030, when the eVTOL industry could be a $29 billion-per-year business, Archer may then be a large, consistently profitable player in the space, with its shares worth many times their current trading price.
AST SpaceMobile has been on a tear this year. Year to date, shares rose 244% in 2025, but don’t assume this means you’ve missed the big launch for this space-based telecommunications technology company.
Commercialization progress has been a key reason why AST SpaceMobile has performed so well year to date. However, while forecasts predict AST SpaceMobile’s sales will increase by around 1,200% this year, projections for 2026 anticipate further rapid sales growth, with average estimates indicating revenue will rise by another 342.6%.
On a longer time frame, AST SpaceMobile may be just a few years away from reaching consistent profitability. This milestone could arrive as soon as 2027 or 2028. That’s when analyst estimates call for the company to report earnings of $0.35 and $2.57 per share, respectively.
Remember a few years back, when investors speculated on how one or more of the EV start-ups could give market leader Tesla a run for its money? Flash forward to now, and confidence in most of these “Tesla killers, like Lucid Group, has evaporated completely.
However, among these EV contenders, Rivian Automotive still has a shot of scaling into a major name in the space. This year, Rivian has regularly started reporting positive gross profits. Next year, the company could hit new production, delivery, and profitability milestones with the launch of its R2 line of lower-priced SUVs.
The stock has already rallied from $15 to over $20 per share in anticipation of the mid-2026 R2 launch. However, if this product lives up to its current “game changer” hype, with annual sales in the six-digit range, Rivian could make significant progress toward generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) profitability. In turn, this would likely propel the stock to even loftier price levels.
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Joby Aviation(NYSE: JOBY) stock is up 73% over the last year and 326% over the last three years, and the electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) company is seemingly on an inexorable pathway to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)-type certification and commercial launch in 2026. As such, investors might be tempted to think that the stock is poised for a “buy the rumor, sell the news” moment after its eVTOL receives certification and launches commercially.
However, I think that would be a short-term approach. Here’s why.
Image source: Joby Aviation.
To understand why, you need to examine the company’s unique business model. Unlike its peers, such as Archer Aviation, Joby isn’t a company focused on being an eVTOL original equipment manufacturer (OEM). Instead, management plans to build what it calls a “vertically integrated transportation company that will deliver transportation services to customers, including government agencies such as the U.S. Air Force,” according to its SEC filings.
Consequently, its key milestones in the coming years are not just about achieving certification in 2026 and commercially launching; it also needs to establish itself as a transportation company. Consequently, there are many opportunities and pathways to growth for a company sometimes referred to as the “Uber of the Skies.”
The moniker is applicable, but it’s far from the complete story. Uber Technologies has invested $125 million in Joby and sold its air taxi division, Uber Elevate, to Joby in 2020. In addition, Joby will add the Blade air mobility business it acquired in the summer to Uber’s app.
However, Joby differs from its partner in that the company also manufactures the transportation equipment (eVTOLs) used in the service; that’s what management means by a vertically integrated transportation company.
The “vertical” approach doesn’t just apply to its transportation services strategy; Joby is also following a vertical manufacturing approach, whereby it’s building its eVTOLs in-house, with help from its partner and investor, Toyota, rather than sourcing from numerous external suppliers.
In theory, this approach will lead to a slower certification process as Joby isn’t leaning into aerospace companies with established expertise in the way that Archer Aviation, for example, is doing. However, the reality is that Joby is ahead in the certification race — an impressive achievement.
Image source: Getty Images.
All told, Joby is definitely not yesterday’s news. On the contrary, its partnerships with Uber and Delta Air Lines speak to its long-term future as a transportation services company, so anyone tempted to “sell on the news” of certification in 2026 may be acting prematurely.
Before you buy stock in Joby Aviation, consider this:
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Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $504,994!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005… if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,156,218!*
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Lee Samaha has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Two next-generation aviation companies are facing off in a legal battle.
Joby Aviation is suing Archer Aviation over allegations that its rival misappropriated trade secrets that were stolen from Joby by a former employee. Joby filed the lawsuit Thursday. It comes as the two companies push to roll out electric air taxi service in the U.S.
“Archer brazenly used that stolen information to interfere with Joby’s exclusive strategic partnership,” the complaint reads. “This is corporate espionage, planned and premeditated.”
Both companies are developing electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, meant to operate as air taxis. Santa Cruz, California-based Joby Aviation is targeting Dubai for the initial launch of its first air taxi service before rolling out in the U.S. cities like Los Angeles and New York, in partnership with Delta Air Lines. Archer Aviation is based in San Jose, California, and also aims to roll out its air taxi service in New York City, but in partnership with United Airlines. Both trade publicly on the New York Stock Exchange and have contracts with the Department of Defense for military applications of their technology.
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The lawsuit centers around Archer employee George Kivork, who had previously worked as Joby’s head of U.S. state and local policy. On his LinkedIn, Kivork describes his current role at Archer as general manager. Prior to Joby, he worked as a senior public policy manager at Lyft, in various roles for the city of Los Angeles, and as an attorney in the Department of Commerce’s Office of General Counsel.
The lawsuit alleges that two days before Kivork left the company, he withdrew “dozens of files” from Joby’s systems, even sending some to his personal email. They allegedly contained confidential and proprietary information about “partnership terms, business and regulatory strategies, infrastructure strategies for vertiports and airport access, and technical information about Joby’s aircraft and operations.” Three weeks later, Joby alleges that Archer approached a major real estate developer that already has a strategic partnership with Joby, and pitched a deal that was “specifically calibrated to undercut Joby’s agreement with the Developer.”
Archer Chief Legal and Strategy Officer Eric Lentel called Joby’s case “bad faith litigation” in a statement provided to Inc.
“Joby alleges we used their trade secrets to win a ‘deal’ with a developer but the reality is that Archer has no deal with this developer and Mr. Kivork did not bring any Joby confidential information to Archer,” Lentell said. “Joby knows these facts and is now improperly attempting to achieve through bad faith litigation what it cannot accomplish through fair competition. Archer remains focused on building the future of advanced aviation in America.”
Archer has been under legal scrutiny before. In 2021, autonomous eVTOL company Wisk Aero sued Archer for alleged intellectual property theft. The company similarly claimed that Archer had acquired the confidential information through a former employee, TechCrunch reported. The two eventually settled in 2023, and per terms of the dispute, Archer agreed to use Wisk as an autonomous partner, according to CNBC. As of 2023, Wisk is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Boeing.
Electric aircraft startup Lilium may have ceased operations a year ago, but its insolvency filing wasn’t quite the end of the German-based company.
There were multiple failed attempts to restructure the company, including a last-ditch effort by Mobile Uplift Corporation, a company set up by investors from Europe and North America, to acquire the operating assets of the startup’s two subsidiaries. Ultimately, a bankruptcy administrator put the company’s assets through a competitive bid process.
Now, some of its tech will live on over at Archer Aviation, which beat out Ambitious Air Mobility Group and U.S.-based Joby Aviation with the winning bid of €18 million ($21 million) for all 300 of Lilium’s patent assets. Joby confirmed it participated in the bid.
Lilium, which was founded in 2015, was developing a vertical take-off and landing aircraft with speeds of up to 100 km/h. The company raised more than $1 billion from investors before going public in 2021 on the Nasdaq via a merger with Qell, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). While it managed to land high-profile investors like Tencent and lock in customers, including an order for 100 electric jets from Saudi Arabia, it burned through cash long before it could deliver a product.
The patents span critical eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) technologies, including high-voltage systems, flight controls, ducted fans, and advanced aircraft design, according to an Archer spokesperson. The new patents represent a “strong addition” to Archer’s growing IP portfolio, which now totals more than 1,000 global patent assets, the spokesperson noted in an email.
What Archer plans to do with those patents isn’t totally clear, although there are hints. Lilium’s electric ducted fans would be a good application for light-sport or regional electric flight — which goes beyond Archer’s original mission.
Archer, which went public in 2021 via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, initially focused on developing an air taxi network. It added a defense program in December, which included an exclusive deal with weapons manufacturer Anduril to jointly develop a hybrid gas-and-electric-powered VTOL aircraft for critical defense applications.
Archer Aviation, the electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle startup, has partnered with India’s travel and hospitality conglomerate InterGlobe Enterprises to launch an all-electric air taxi service in the country in 2026. If successful, it would make the South Asian nation its second international market outside the U.S. to experience its ambitious air taxi operations after the United Arab Emirates.
Both companies said Thursday that the service, subject to regulatory approvals and clearances, will be “cost-competitive with ground transportation” and improve urban mobility in the world’s most populous country with low-noise electric air taxis. The partnership plans to finance the purchase of up to 200 Archer’s “Midnight” aircraft. The vertical takeoff and landing aircraft has a capacity of four passengers and a pilot and can fly for up to 100 miles.
Starting with routes in Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, the electric air-taxi service aims to complete about a 17-mile trip in the national capital in 7 minutes — a journey that typically takes 60 to 90 minutes by car.
Archer and InterGlobe plan to work with domestic businesses to operate the electric aircraft, finance and build vertiport infrastructure, and train pilots and other personnel needed for the operations. Both companies are also looking to explore different use cases for the aircraft apart from being into the urban air taxi service, including cargo, logistics, medical and emergency services, as well as private company and charter services.
Counts Boeing and United Airlines among its investors, Archer secured a $142 million deal in August to provide up to six Midnight flights to the U.S. Air Force. The California-based company wants to replace car commutes with its eVTOL flights in urban areas. In August, the company secured Federal Aviation Administration certification to begin testing eVTOL flights in the U.S. It also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Abu Dhabi Investment Office last month to start its service in the United Arab Emirates in 2026.
“India is one of, if not the largest opportunity for eVTOL aircraft utilization in the world, as it is home to the world’s largest population of over 1.4 billion people and its largest cities face some of the greatest congestion challenges in the world,” said Archer CEO and founder Adam Goldstein, in a prepared statement. “Archer’s all-electric Midnight aircraft is designed to provide a revolutionary transportation solution that can help address these congestion issues.”
InterGlobe Enterprises, which backs India’s top air carrier IndiGo, looks to expand its presence in affordable transportation with the new partnership.
“We are excited at this new opportunity of bringing an effective, futuristic and sustainable transport solution by introducing Archer’s electric aircraft to India,” said Rahul Bhatia, group managing director of InterGlobe.
Urban transportation in India has started facing challenges as the country has seen a rapid increase in the number of passenger and commercial vehicles in the last few years, alongside limited road expansion and non-uniform roadway geometrics across cities. While state authorities have emphasized the use of public transport to reduce traffic congestion, the country has not yet found an adequate solution and is looking at next-generation options, including air taxis and hyperloop, to get a sustainable future.
