‘He Yearns For the Shop:' Woman Can't Get Her Baby to Stop Crying. Then She Turns on a YouTube Mechanic
Hannah Plunkett's TikTok depicts her baby's quiet enjoyment of service tech sounds. People overwhelmingly agree it's an early indicator of his future career path. Though it is possible it merely speaks to infants' and children's fascination with mechanics.
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As of this writing, her post has 11 million views.
Plunkett begins her video recording her child swaying to and fro in a baby carriage swing. The wide-eyed infant isn't making a sound.
'Baby has cried off and on all day for 10 hours. NOTHING has soothed him,' Plunkett writes in the text overlay. 'I have tried everything.'
Then she tried something unconventional.
'Turned on mechanic sounds on YouTube and he instantly stopped,' she adds.
She pans her camera to a TV that's playing a slideshow of different vehicles in a garage. As the images cycle through, the noise of drilling, hammering, and other service work plays in the background.
All the while Plunkett's baby sits quietly, looking around the room.
Kids Love Cars
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The child-centric blog,
Romper
, wrote about kids' obsession with automobiles.
Child development experts told them kids like toy cars so much because it echoes real life. These toys are 'familiar objects,' which fascinate them.
This logic could also explain why kids
like playing
with keys.
Additionally, a pediatric psychologist noted that children with heightened levels of testosterone tend to be more fascinated with vehicles.
There are perks to playing with toy cars, per
Romper
.
Often, the storylines children craft when playing with toy vehicles include aspects of teamwork and problem solving. For example, a child may race a firetruck along the carpet to put out a fire and have police officers work together with emergency workers to save the people.
Creating a course for cars to race on also helps tune a child's fine motor skills,
Romper
notes. So does piecing together a train set by linking carts together and setting up a track.
Both these tasks require patience, focus, and hand-eye coordination.
'Babies With Preset Careers'
Enjoying playing with toy cars is one thing. Being soothed by the sound of a mechanic's shop is another.
'Okay but how did we get to this discovery,' one person wondered.
Another joked that the child is already a seasoned service tech veteran. '(Takes bottle out of mouth) you're gonna need a new alternator,' they wrote.
As it turns out, Plunkett's baby isn't the only kid enthralled by automobile sounds.
'My daughter was teething really bad the other night, midnight screaming for an hour. My brother come out & said watch this…put skids on she stopped in 2.5 seconds,' one remarked.
Another thought that the infant's love for mechanical sounds is a clear sign of his future vocation.
'Babies with preset careers are so funny to me,' they quipped.
Motor1
has reached out to Plunkett via TikTok comment for further information. We'll update this if she responds.
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Following that announcement, Archer's $850 million raise timed perfectly with the White House order calling for American dominance in eVTOLs. These tailwinds could help Archer more than smaller rivals, but the crown remains up for grabs until paying passengers are flying regularly. Archer remains a pre-revenue company, so its financial story centers on cash burn, funding, and leverage. In the first quarter of 2025, Archer reported a net loss of $93.4 million. Losses are normal for a startup in R&D mode, but investors are watching the trend closely. On that front, Archer's Q1 net loss narrowed from $116.5 million in Q1 2024 and beat analysts' EPS expectations with a loss of $0.17 per share. Operating expenses were $144 million, but heavy non-cash charges padded that figure. On an adjusted basis, operating costs were $113 million as the company hires and builds infrastructure. The burn rate (cash used in operating and investing) was about $105 million, implying roughly $35 million per month and, before new funding, less than one year of runway. Source: Gurufocus The balance sheet, however, has transformed with recent fund-raises. Archer ended March 2025 with just over $1.03 billion in cash, then raised another $850 million in June by selling 85 million new shares at $10 each. The infusion boosted liquidity to roughly $2 billion, raised at a favorable price that limited dilution. Even so, dilution has been significant and will likely continue; the share count has ballooned more than fivefold since the SPAC merger and now exceeds 540 million shares before including the June issuance. Early investors have paid for ample funding with significant dilution. With $2 billion in cash, Archer is funded through at least 2026 by most estimates. At the current $100 million quarterly burn, that represents two full years of cushion. Burn may increase as Archer shifts from prototyping to manufacturing. The company plans to start low-volume production in the second half of 2025, targeting two aircraft per month by year-end, and then scale to dozens per month by 2026-27. Management aims to produce up to 10 Midnight aircraft in 2025, including several test vehicles, and to conduct for-credit flight tests that count toward certification. Progress on these fronts will signal whether the first revenue is on track for 2025. Ramping production will require capital investment in tooling, supply chain, and personnel. Archer's 400,000-square-foot factory in Covington, Georgia, is complete and ready to scale, while Stellantis likely brings manufacturing expertise and potentially off-balance-sheet resources. Archer has not published an expected unit cost or sale price for Midnight, but management uses roughly $5 million per aircraft when converting MOUs into backlog dollars. If Archer gets a dozen aircraft in commercial service in 2025-26, it will finally record revenue, and investors can begin modeling utilization and profitability per aircraft. Until then, traditional multiples (P/E, EV/EBITDA, even P/S) are not applicable in the absence of earnings or revenue. Archer's valuation rests almost entirely on future expectations, making the stock a venture-style bet. That said, the market is assigning a multi-billion-dollar value to Archer, so investors clearly see a sizable payoff down the road. Archer's market cap is just under $6.6 billion, up from less than $3 billion a year ago, reflecting increased optimism that the first aircraft are closer than ever. The market cap roughly equals the $6 billion backlog, implying a price-to-backlog ratio of about 1x. For a pre-revenue firm that is rich, but it suggests investors believe a large portion of those orders will convert. By comparison, Joby Aviation currently commands about $9.5 billion in market value, while Eve Holding is around $2.1 billion, and the smaller peers (Vertical, Lilium) are well under $1 billion. Archer plans to scale to 650 aircraft a year by 2030. Assuming each Midnight generates $2 to 3 million in annual revenue (either via operating lease/ride services or via sales price recognized), that implies $1.5 to 2 billion in annual revenue by 2030. If Archer achieves that, today's $6 billion market cap is about 4x a potential 2030 revenue. Of course, that scenario is speculative and five years out, but it shows the upside the market is pricing in. In the near term, Wall Street analysts expect around $20-50 million in revenue in 2025 and $180 million in 2026, ramping to roughly half a billion by 2027. The market values Archer as if it will become a major player in UAM. At the end of the day, valuing Archer is a bet on execution at this stage. The stock is not cheap by any conventional metric, but if Archer becomes one of the winners in an entirely new industry, today's market cap could prove modest. If UAM truly takes off in the 2030s, leading eVTOL manufacturers/operators could justify tens of billions in value. Archer is positioning to be in that conversation. That potential upside is what investors are paying for today, with full acknowledgement that the company may stumble and never fully justify the valuation if things go south. Hitting milestones could justify the valuation and then some. Conversely, any shortfall, delays, fewer deliveries, cost overruns, could drive the stock lower. It's entirely possible that eVTOL adoption will be slower and bumpier than optimists expect, which would pressure all players, including Archer. Moreover, once the FAA signs off and Midnight aircraft start shipping, the focus shifts to phase two: unit cost, fleet utilization, and gross margins, the hard numbers that will decide how scalable this industry can be. Archer's story remains high-risk, high-reward, but it is far more advanced than a year ago. Investors with a high tolerance for volatility may find Archer a compelling play on transportation's future, while those with lower risk appetite may wait for clear revenue traction. As always, execution is the key. The coming 12 to 18 months will likely determine whether Archer Aviation can truly fly above the pack or if these ambitious plans start to lose altitude. Given everything, I am optimistic that management can execute the plan and start to deliver. The skies of urban mobility are almost within reach, and Archer is one big step (or flight) away from making history. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. 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