Safety
Battery Fire at Archer’s San Jose Lab Forces Evacuation
Three people were hurt and about 100 evacuated after a test pack overheated
Archer’s battery pack production line
Technicians work on Archer’s battery pack production line in San Jose, California, which the company says can build up to 15,000 packs per year. © Archer Aviation

A battery test pack caught fire on Monday at Archer Aviation’s battery lab in San Jose, California, after its lithium-ion cells overheated in an uncontrollable chain reaction known as thermal runaway. The fire injured three people and forced about 100 people to evacuate, Archer reported. 

Company co-founder and CEO Adam Goldstein said on X that the pack was a next-generation battery for “a future pipeline program,” not for the company’s Midnight eVTOL air taxi. Archer has not said what that program is. Its other announced programs include Thunder, a hybrid-electric autonomous defense aircraft it is developing with Anduril, and Halo, a commercial utility drone derived from Thunder.

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