How is eVTOL: From Letters of Intent to Binding Orders constructed?
Published by Deepstory Research as the methodology attached to eVTOL: From Letters of Intent to Binding Orders. Scope and source attribution are bounded by that Evidence Brief.
Procedure and scope
The headline number in this sector is commitment volume, and it is badly overstated if letters of intent are counted as orders. Eve’s ~2,700-aircraft figure is total commitments, the large majority of which are LOIs. The separate "binding orders" chart isolates the firm commitments announced in the week of Aug 3, 2026. Archer publishes an order book by VALUE (>$6bn) rather than by unit count, and Joby does not publish a comparable unit total, so neither appears on the unit chart. Converting a dollar book to units would require an assumed unit price — omitted per the binding rules. CAVEAT: certification target years are OEM statements, not regulator commitments, and have slipped repeatedly across this sector. The Aug 2026 sourcing on the binding orders is thin — a single trade-press brief plus the OEM release. Scout run: Trending_Candidates/2026-08-06.md. Re-verified 2026-08-10.
Known failure modes and limits
- Revenue, unit price, or margin.
- Whether stated certification targets will hold.
- Comparable unit counts for OEMs reporting order books in dollars.