Archer Aviation Inc ACHR
Archer Aviation is 'the Nikola of the skies' — the Midnight eVTOL is uncertifiable, the Covington factory sits idle, and the $6B order book is built on shell companies and cancelled deals.
Thesis
Grizzly Research argues Archer Aviation (NYSE: ACHR) is 'the Nikola of the skies' — a publicly-traded eVTOL whose Midnight aircraft is fundamentally flawed and unlikely to achieve FAA Type Certification on promised timelines. Site visits to the 'state-of-the-art' Covington, Georgia factory in June, July and August 2025 revealed near-empty parking lots and no production activity, despite claims of scaling to 50 aircraft per year and a 650/year goal with Stellantis support. The touted $6 billion order book is inflated: Air Chateau's $500M UAE MoU has likely ceased operations, KakaoMobility's 50-aircraft deal collapsed after Archer failed a Q4 2024 Goheung demo, Future Flight Global is a two-month-old Delaware shell, and the Air Force's $148M Agility Prime contract has only awarded $33M. The Abu Dhabi 'Launch Edition' was a staged hover with an obsolete aircraft. Competitor Joby leads on every technical metric.
SCQA
Archer Aviation is a publicly-traded eVTOL company promising FAA Type Certification of its Midnight aircraft, commercial air-taxi launch with UAE partners in 2025, and scaling to 50 then 650 aircraft per year from a Covington, Georgia factory backed by Stellantis.
The Midnight design is fundamentally flawed — rigid 2-bladed lifter propellers now forced into a late 4-bladed X-configuration redesign — the Covington factory sits idle, and management papers over failures with inflated MoUs, a staged Abu Dhabi 'launch,' and a desperate defense pivot.
Short ACHR. Investors and analysts should press management on certification progress, flight-test metrics, conformal-aircraft counts, noise measurements and the propeller redesign — and recognize Archer's trajectory mirrors Nikola Corporation's.
Grizzly is short and expects substantial downside as the gap between Archer's PR narrative and operational reality closes, mirroring Nikola's collapse; no specific price target is given.
The three reasons
- 1
Midnight's rigid 2-bladed lifter propellers are uncertifiable; Archer forced into a late 4-bladed X-config redesign.
- 2
Covington, Georgia 'state-of-the-art' factory parking lot sits near-empty across June, July and August 2025 site visits.
- 3
$6B order book inflated with shell-company MoUs, a cancelled KakaoMobility deal, and a ceased-operation UAE counterparty.
Primary demands
- Disclose actual Type Certification progress and detailed flight-test metrics (hours airborne, miles flown, max speed)
- Explain the forced propeller redesign from 2-bladed to 4-bladed X-configuration and its impact on prior test data and certification timelines
- Publish noise measurements for MidZero (N302AX) in out-of-ground-effect hover
- Account for the gap between promised conforming aircraft fleet (6+ since 2022) and the single non-conforming prototype flying CTOL only
- Release substantive flight footage from Abu Dhabi beyond the staged single hover
KPIs cited
Pattern membership
Precedents cited
- Nikola Corporation (titular analogue)
- Theranos (quoted as 'Theranos-level gaslighting' by Bell Flight engineer Christopher Foskey)
- Culper Research prior short report on Archer's Japan failures
- Grizzly Research's own prior Archer report
Composition what's on the 71 slides
Slide gallery ·
Notes
Classic short-seller fraud-exposure report structured as a 74-page research note rather than a slide deck. Central framing ('Nikola of the skies') is stated on the cover and repeated in conclusion — a strong specimen of analogical short-selling rhetoric. Quarter-by-quarter 'broken promise' timeline (Q4 2022 → Q2 2025) on the conforming-aircraft commitment is a reusable rhetorical device. Engineer testimony (Christopher Foskey's 'Theranos-level gaslighting' LinkedIn post) used as third-party expert corroboration. Explicit references to Culper Research's prior Archer short report — part of a broader coordinated short campaign on ACHR. No specific price target or stake disclosed; disclaimer confirms short position without quantifying it.