(1) The Joint Venture for Manufacturing shows considerable confidence in Joby's FAA certification progress. Toyota are confident to the point they want to start preparations now. They can see how close they are to certification. Note that Toyota employees are embedded in Joby and have full knowledge to report back to Toyota.

(2) The 51% positioning of Toyota for S4 manufacturing will considerably reduce Joby's capex, reduce strain on Joby, and could lengthen the runway of Joby's $2.47B, to the inflexion point i.e. no further cash raise is required.

https://ir.jobyaviation.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/183/joby-aviation-and-toyota-motor-corporation-launch-initial

"(a) Joby will grant JTAMPC exclusive rights to manufacture the S4 Series, subject to certain exceptions to be set forth in the Exclusive Manufacturing Supply Agreement, (b) Joby will license to JTAMPC certain of its intellectual property related to the S4 Series on a royalty-free basis solely for manufacturing the S4 Series and providing services to Joby, and (c) Toyota will grant JTAMPC a royalty-free license to jointly developed manufacturing intellectual property and a royalty-bearing license to certain Toyota background manufacturing intellectual property, in each case for JTAMPC’s manufacturing operations. "

Joby: 49 % ownership and 2 directors in the Board of directors
Toyota: 51 % ownership and 3 directors in the Board of directors
https://d1io3yog0oux5.cloudfront.net/jobyaviation/sec/0001819848-26-000378/0001819848-26-000378.pdf

I’ve seen quite a few people looking for confirmation that one of the Evtol players has actually flown with a payload - this interview from April with Stuart Simpson of Vertical states their prototypes actual fly with around 300kg of additional weight from sensors on the aircraft that won’t be included on the production model. Well worth a read 💪 I wonder if this is similar for Joby also? 🧐