eVTOL.
Air taxis, still grounded.

2026 was supposed to be the year you could ride an air taxi. With one quarter left, nobody anywhere is flying paying passengers on a regular schedule: not Joby in Dubai, not Archer in Abu Dhabi, and not even EHang in China, which already holds its certificates.

The aircraft exist. eVTOLs (short for electric vertical takeoff and landing) are quiet, battery-powered air taxis that lift off like a helicopter and fly like a plane, built for 10- to 30-minute hops across a metro area. The industry likes to call them flying cars. What they don't have yet is permission. Until a regulator certifies the aircraft and approves an operator, none of them can carry a paying passenger, and no electric air taxi has an FAA type certificate.

So certification is the whole story for eVTOL stocks going into 2027. The certificate is the gate, and the cash clock runs while everyone waits at it. The leaders burn hundreds of millions of dollars a quarter, and Joby alone has lined up about $2 billion of new capital this year.

The list sorts these eVTOL stocks by how each company is handling the wait: one leader, two companies buying time with revenue from somewhere else, China's warning, the second wave, and two private names.

One company is far enough along that its certification pace sets the mood for the rest of the eVTOL stocks.

Joby Aviation NYSE: JOBY

Joby has the most money and the most visible progress. It had $2.26 billion of cash at the end of June, after raising $1.29 billion in stock and convertible notes in the first half, and it set up a $750 million share-sale program in August.

The first FAA-conforming test aircraft flew this year, and Joby flew piloted demonstration flights in Dallas–Fort Worth in September under a new federal pilot program. It also bought Blade's passenger business, which brings in revenue today. But the number that matters is the FAA's progress bar, and that moved four points in three months.

These two have found ways to earn money before their air taxis can.

Archer Aviation NYSE: ACHR

Archer is buying revenue instead of waiting for it. It's acquiring three businesses from Boeing: Wisk, the self-flying air-taxi developer, SkyGrid, an airspace-software company, and Insitu, a military drone maker with more than $200 million a year in revenue that's already profitable. Archer itself brought in $6.6 million in the first half.

Boeing will own about 19.75% of Archer and get a board seat. The antitrust waiting period ended in September, and the deal is set to close by the end of 2026. Meanwhile Archer is burning $170 million to $200 million a quarter against $1.56 billion of cash.

BETA Technologies NYSE: BETA

BETA builds a vertical-takeoff aircraft, but it also builds a version with wheels that takes off from a runway. That one doesn't depend on the new rules for vertical-lift aircraft, so it's already flying real missions. It was the first company to start operations under the federal eVTOL pilot program, carrying manufactured organs for United Therapeutics.

BETA also sells motors and runs 138 charging sites, and it expects $42 million to $50 million of revenue this year. It's still losing more than $400 million, but it's the only one of the three that's flying customers' cargo today.

A certificate isn't the last gate. Here's what happens after you get one.

EHang NASDAQ: EH

EHang got the world's first operator certificates for a pilotless passenger eVTOL in China in March 2025. Seventeen months later it was still in "routine trial operations." In August it withdrew its 2026 revenue guidance, citing uncertainty over when China will approve commercial passenger service, and second-quarter revenue fell 31%.

Approvals slowed after a piloted light aircraft crashed into a Beijing office tower in June. EHang is the reminder that being certified and being allowed to sell tickets are different things.

These two are certifying later and paying for every extra month.

Eve Air Mobility NYSE: EVEX

Eve is about 72% owned by Embraer, the Brazilian jet maker, and it planned for a long certification road from the start. It doesn't expect commercial service until 2028. Its quarterly loss of $34 million is a fraction of what Joby and Archer burn. Eve has about $531 million of liquidity, including undrawn debt, and around 2,700 non-binding letters of intent.

Vertical Aerospace NYSE: EVTL

Vertical shows what the wait costs. Its certification target has slipped to 2029, its cash only lasts to the end of the third quarter of 2027, and it has disclosed material uncertainty about its ability to continue as a going concern.

In September it hired Jefferies to explore strategic alternatives, and it received an NYSE notice after its stock fell below $1. Vertical is now a bet on a sale or a rescue, not on the aircraft.

One builds a flying car for consumers. The other already sells certified cargo drones.

Aridge

Aridge, formerly XPeng AeroHT, makes the "Land Aircraft Carrier," a six-wheeled van that carries and recharges a two-seat eVTOL. It has raised about $1 billion. Bloomberg reported in January that it filed confidentially for a Hong Kong IPO, but no application has been made public. Despite the old name, XPeng holds only a small minority stake.

AutoFlight

AutoFlight won a Chinese type certificate for its cargo eVTOL in 2024, along with production and airworthiness certificates. Its passenger aircraft is still in certification. Cargo carries no passengers, so it faces a lower bar and can earn money while the passenger rules get written.

The air taxi may turn out to be the least valuable thing these companies build.

Look at what they're actually monetizing first. In September, Joby's autonomy system flew a Cessna Caravan 3,199 miles across the U.S. with zero pilot inputs, and it's already flying in Air Force exercises. Archer is buying a military drone maker and Wisk's autonomy work. BETA has unveiled a hybrid military aircraft. All three are turning electric propulsion and self-flying software into defense and cargo businesses.

Those markets don't wait on a passenger certificate, and the customers pay now. So when you size up eVTOL stocks, look past the air taxi. By 2027, the companies that survive the certification wait will be the ones that turned their air-taxi technology into something else to sell while they waited.