Is ACHR Stock a Buy Now? Here’s What You Need to Know Before Investing

Archer Aviation's high-flying ambitions meet market reality—can this eVTOL stock defy gravity?

Disrupting Urban Mobility

Archer's electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft promise to revolutionize urban transportation—if they can navigate regulatory hurdles and manufacturing scaling. The company's recent partnerships with major airlines suggest institutional confidence, but production timelines remain aggressive.

Financial Turbulence Ahead?

While pre-orders stack up, cash burn rates hover at concerning levels. The path to profitability stretches beyond 2027—typical for aerospace startups but brutal for public market patience. Short interest climbed 15% last quarter as skeptics question the viability of urban air mobility economics.

Technical Analysis Check

Current trading patterns show consolidation near 52-week lows—either a basement bargain or value trap. Relative strength indicators suggest oversold conditions, but sector-wide de-risking continues punishing speculative growth names.

Veridict: High-Risk Horizon

Archer represents pure optionality on urban air mobility adoption—reward could be massive, but you're betting against decades of failed flying car promises and the cynical reality that most SPAC mergers eventually crash harder than their prototypes.

The regulatory headwinds

Let's start with the elephant in the room. The biggest concern right now with Archer is that it doesn't have the regulatory approval to fly passengers at a commercial scale.

That approval comes from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and involves a five-step process to gain FAA type certification, which is needed to put customers in the air. The challenge here is that Archer is designing a completely new category of craft -- an electric vertical takeoff and landing, or eVTOL -- and the FAA doesn't have a tried-and-true method for evaluating these crafts.

Luckily, progress is being made on that front. In February 2025, Archer obtained a Part 141 certificate for its pilot training academy. This combined with a previous certificate (Part 135) for commercial operations to give Archer the regulatory framework to both train pilots and eventually operate its air taxi ("Midnight") as a service once that type certification is secured.

But -- and this is key -- it doesn't have the type certification, and it's not clear when it will get it. In its first-quarter financial presentation, management said that it was "focused on the fourth and final phase of the certification program and have received FAA approval for 15% of the compliance verification documents."

Disappointingly, management said basically the same thing for its second-quarter presentation. In other words, year to date, no big step forward has made to secure that FAA type certification.

Cash burn and a nonexistent eVTOL market

Until Archer gets FAA type certification, expect this pre-revenue company to burn (a lot of) cash.

To put it in numbers: Archer's cash burn rate is typically between $95 million and $110 million a quarter. It ended its latest quarter with about $1.7 billion in cash on the balance sheet. That gives it at least three or four years to persist at today's cash burn rate. It's a survivable number, but a finite one nonetheless.

ACHR data by YCharts.

But here's where it gets sticky. It WOULD be one thing if Archer was designing craft for a pre-existing market with strong demand for it. But it's not. It's designing craft for a market that doesn't exist yet. For Archer to succeed at scale, it needs vertiport infrastructure, charging stations, and pilots, none of which are trivial capital expenditures.

It also needs manufacturing power to produce its aircraft at scale. To be fair, it appears to have some capacity in this regard (such as its manufacturing plant in Georgia), but it has a long road ahead if it wants to operate at such a rate as to put ticket prices within the reach of average travelers.

Image source: Archer Aviation.

That brings up another point: Who exactly is Archer going after with eVTOLs? Right now, the likely answer is higher-end travelers, but I imagine Archer will want to make its flights affordable to a wider audience. However, if it can't achieve an affordable price point in the mid-term, it might face a challenge with travelers who don't want to pay $200 for a 10-minute ride to the airport.

So, is Archer Aviation a buy?

The challenges outlined above aren't insurmountable. Indeed, the bull case for Archer rests on the fact that eVTOLs could offer a solution to a massive problem: Urban congestion.

Additionally, let's not overlook Archer's credibility boosters. It has aviation friends, like(UAL -2.42%), and manufacturing partners, like(STLA -2.30%), which provide it with much-needed expertise. It was also named the official air taxi provider for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. That doesn't guarantee it will stick around until 2028, but it might give it paying customers if it does.

Archer is riding on an intriguing concept, one that can change urban mobility. At the same time, context matters. Interested investors should keep an eye on its balance sheet and FAA certification timeline. For Archer to grow into its $5.4 billion market cap, it needs a service network and several craft in operation. Most investors will likely want to wait until FAA type certification is within reach before taking a sizable position in this growth stock.