Archer sells proprietary eVTOL drive to third parties
Archer has announced that it will share its US-manufactured electric drives for its own eVTOL Midnight with other customers. The first deal has been signed with the partner duo Anduril Industries/EDGE Group, which aims to accelerate the development and series production of Anduril’s recently unveiled autonomous aircraft, Omen, through the acquisition. This is significant as the United Arab Emirates has committed to an initial purchase of 50 Omen systems.
Archer is sure that its electric powertrain is optimised for a wide range of applications in civil and military aviation. Anduril is a specialist in military technology, which Archer officially named as a partner at the end of 2024. At that time, both sides announced their intention to equip a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft for military purposes with a hybrid drive. The model is intended for a potential programme by the US Department of Defence, they said. However, the current deal with Omen relates to a different flight system.
For Archer, opening up its technology to third parties is primarily a new source of revenue. The company is currently still awaiting the final approvals required for the commercial launch of its Midnight and recently reported no revenue for the third quarter of 2025, but a net loss of $129.9 million. At the same time, Archer has completed the acquisition of more than 300 patents from its insolvent German competitor Lilium and, with more than 1,000 patents, now considers itself one of the strongest players in the industry.
“While most see our Midnight eVTOL as an aircraft, we view Midnight as a platform that plays host to a wide range of new and exciting aerospace technologies that will be leveraged way beyond our own aircraft,” said Adam Goldstein, founder and CEO of Archer. “Our powertrain deal with Anduril is the first of what we expect to be many examples of this. For almost a year, we have worked closely with Anduril’s team as we advance our hybrid-electric aircraft project. As we’ve familiarized ourselves with each other’s technology, new and interesting opportunities to collaborate beyond the scope of the initial hybrid aircraft project have been uncovered.”
Shane Arnott, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Anduril, commented: “We’ve been working on Omen for more than five years. By combining the Archer team’s expertise in powertrain technology with a little bit of Anduril magic, we’ve been able to mature our propulsion solution to achieve the ranges, speeds, and payload capacity we need to make Omen operationally relevant for a variety of dual-use mission sets. The maturity and reliability of Archer’s powertrain platform de-risks our plans to deliver a production variant of Omen to customers at scale.”
0 Comments