Joby Aviation reportedly snubs Marina for its new factory, will choose Ohio or North Carolina.

Electric air taxi startup Joby Aviation has reportedly narrowed down the potential locations for a new factory to Ohio and North Carolina, in what would be a blow to local stakeholders who had lobbied for the company to expand its existing presence in Marina.

The news arrives courtesy of TechCrunch, with the tech publication citing anonymous sources who say Marina has missed the final cut to house Joby’s planned 580,000-square-foot manufacturing facility. The new factory will allow the Santa Cruz-based company to scale up operations as it develops a fleet of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft capable of shuttling passengers across short distances.

Marina joins Detroit, Michigan, as locations on Joby’s shortlist that are no longer under consideration, according to TechCrunch. Instead, the company is now deliberating between sites in Ohio—which is said to have offered Joby an incentive package totaling $110 million—and North Carolina.

The news will come as a blow to a coalition of local government and private-sector stakeholders who had hoped Joby would choose to expand its existing presence at Marina Municipal Airport. The startup set up shop in Marina in 2018 and now occupies a 120,000-square-foot facility there dedicated to research and development, including work on its prototypes. In June, Joby officially launched its pilot production line at the Marina plant and celebrated the occasion by demonstrating its prototype before hundreds of guests.

Joby currently employs roughly 400 people in Marina and has a long-term, decade-plus lease at the airport that means it will remain in the area for the foreseeable future. Still, the City of Marina and partners including Monterey Bay DART, Monterey Bay Economic Partnership, UC Santa Cruz and CSU Monterey Bay lobbied for months to land the larger facility, which is expected to create up to 1,800 new jobs.

Yet Joby’s search for a new factory site set off a national bidding war between states and municipalities, and even those angling for an expanded presence in Marina acknowledged that they faced stiff competition from lower-cost, more business-friendly locales capable of offering much richer incentive packages. 

Marina’s pitch was backed by support from the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz), which joined the local coalition in presenting an offer to Joby executives this spring. That proposal was centered around two property tax incentives provided by GO-Biz that would reward Joby for its investment in the area, as well as workforce education programs developed by local universities and colleges.

Marina city officials also cited advantages such as proximity to Joby’s Santa Cruz home base, the existing airport infrastructure, and hundreds of acres of land virtually shovel-ready for construction on the new facility.

But even a June visit by Gov. Gavin Newsom to Joby’s Marina plant appears to have not been enough to convince the startup to expand in California, rather than look elsewhere in scaling up its footprint. Some local officials have been critical of the state for not doing enough to keep and attract businesses like Joby amid heightened competition from other states offering richer incentives and lower taxes, as well as a lower cost of living and more affordable workforce housing.

“I feel that California is not a business-friendly climate, and that we take for granted that companies want to do business here,” Marina City Councilmember Cristina Medina Dirksen told the Weekly last month. “I would like to see more political will put toward keeping businesses in California.”

A spokesperson for Joby says that the company has made “no final decisions” on the new factory’s location, adding: “We continue to be extremely grateful for the support of the local community in Marina. We have grown our team here substantially over the past year and we plan to continue that growth, with around 50 jobs currently advertised.”

When asked for comment, Marina City Manager Layne Long says the city is “continuing to work with Joby at our airport to expand their operations and manufacturing capacity and will continue to do this.”

Monterey County Supervisor Luis Alejo expressed his dismay at the “disappointing news” that Joby has passed over Marina for the new facility “when they have been a California story from day 1,” he tweeted. “All their research and testing happened here in Marina & we provided a competitive support package to remain here. But unfortunately it wasn’t enough for Joby & they turned their back on California on this one.”

Representatives for GO-Biz, Monterey Bay DART and MBEP could not immediately be reached for comment.