With its sights set on fulfilling short-distance intracity trips using its yet-to-be type certified four-passenger eVTOL aircraft in 2025, Archer Aviation said it is “taking a conservative approach” when it comes to establishing targeted performance specifications for its air taxi.

“We’re trying to under promise and over deliver rather than the reverse,” Tom Muniz, chief operating officer of Archer, told Vertical.

The Archer executive was one of the speakers at the AIRTAXI World Congress event in Istanbul, Turkey, this year, discussing the capital, infrastructure, regulations, and certification milestones needed for eVTOL commercialization. Prior to Archer, Muniz spent nearly a decade at the now-defunct Kitty Hawk, followed by a short stint at Wisk Aero before joining Archer in late 2019.

Speaking to Vertical after his presentation, Muniz emphasized Archer’s confidence in its production aircraft’s key performance metrics following its preliminary design review in early August, believing the performance targets are achievable and sufficient to carry out short-haul urban air mobility (UAM) flights.

“We’re very confident we’re going to go to market with aircraft that has a payload of over 1,000 pounds [454 kilograms], which will enable us to carry four passengers,” Muniz said. “Being able to carry four passengers lets us reduce the cost of providing the service, which then makes the tickets more affordable.”

Archer is also confident in its battery pack’s flight cycle life, citing a modest target of 3,000 flight cycles.

“We think we’ll be able to operate at least 3,000 [flight] cycles, but likely many more … That is based off of a very long, extensive test campaign and a conservative interpretation of the data,” Muniz said. “If we wanted to be optimistic, we could probably also get close to 10,000 [flight] cycles, but we’re not out there saying that … We’re taking a conservative approach.”

While Archer’s Maker eVTOL demonstrator used an off-the-shelf battery system from Electric Power Systems, the startup is in the midst of developing its own battery pack using commercially available cells that Muniz said are currently used in high-power commercial applications.

Archer isn’t naming its primary battery partner yet, but says this is an area where the eVTOL company is leveraging its partnership with automotive company Stellantis.

“Obviously, [Stellantis has] a big need for batteries as do we, so being able to work with them to secure that supply of cells is a really interesting synergy between the two companies,” Muniz said.

The California startup is busy building its pre-production prototype with the aim of seeing the aircraft — dubbed Midnight — take off on its first flight early next year. Meanwhile, its pilot conforming aircraft — the model Archer intends to use for certification flight tests — is expected to be built by the end of 2023, in time for its flight test campaign to start in 2024.

Previously naming Los Angeles and Miami as its launch markets, Muniz said Archer intends to announce other launch sites later year, focusing only on U.S. markets at the moment. But its plans to go to market largely lies in the hands of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) publishing a special federal aviation regulation (SFAR) to address eVTOL operations and pilot training.

As one of the consequences of the FAA’s decision to change course on type certification for winged eVTOL aircraft, this is a new regulation that eVTOL developers with plans to operate its own services, such as Joby Aviation, are now waiting on.

The industry is expecting the final SFAR to be implemented by the end of 2024, which Muniz said is a timeline that “works really well for us,” as the company is targeting type certification by the end of 2024 and the launch of UAM services in 2025.

The short timeline between the SFAR being published and Archer’s goal to start operations is not a concern for the company, as Muniz believes “it’s probably going to take in the order of weeks to train somebody to fly these aircraft” — as long as Archer doesn’t decide to develop a complex simulation platform for training.

Muniz said Archer has not decided whether it will offer training to its own pilots, or follow on the heels of Joby, Beta Technologies, Vertical Aerospace, and others by working with third-party training institutes to establish and conduct pilot training.

The startup is working to get its Part 135 air carrier certificate by the end of 2023 with an unnamed fixed-wing aircraft until its Midnight eVTOL is type certified.