Eviation: “Our nine-seater Alice is in the sweet spot” |

Four years since unveiling its revolutionary all-electric Alice nine-seater, Eviation was back last week at the Paris Airshow. A lot has changed since 2019. In the middle of the pandemic, the US start-up completely redesigned the aircraft in 2021. It flew the Alice for the first time in September 2022 in Moses Lake. And there is much more interest in electric aircraft, with various projects emerging around the world. Eviation: "Our nine-seater Alice is in the sweet spot". AirInsight caught up with CEO Greg Davis in Paris to discuss the program. Davis was President of Eviation since May 2021 but was appointed interim CEO in February last year and then CEO in September. He has a background with Viking Air and Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group. Eviation was co-founded in 2015 by two Israeli businessmen, Omer Bah-Yohah and Avi Tzidon, but both left in early 2022. Greg Davis - “Part of my job is to be an advocate for sustainable aviation, to make sure that people understand what we are trying to do. What we have seen at the Paris Airshow is incredible interest in sustainable aviation and also in the regional air mobility sector. I have been busy non-stop and every minute of every hour we are talking about electrification, sustainable aviation, and regional air mobility.” “We have got very good questions. I have been doing this for some eight years to this point, but questions have evolved from trying to get a general understanding of what the technology is to actually understanding when it is going to be in service. We have actually crossed the bridge to the point it is no longer justifying the need for sustainable aviation. Governments have done that. People, the protestors, are out there saying you need to make changes. That has been the theme for the show.” AirInsight – But is a nine-seater an answer to all these questions? GD – “You need all the technologies that are available to get to sustainable aviation. A nine-seater is actually the sweet spot for electric because you can converge the design, electric propulsion. Nine seaters under FAA rules can fly with a single pilot, which reduces operating costs. It keeps you under the 19.000 pounds limit for Part 23 certification, which is a more direct path for certification for an aircraft with this technology. And the airplane is a conventional airplane that can take off from runways that already exist and operate in airspace that already exists. In terms of the overall approach to sustainable aviation, you need electric, you need hybrid, you need hydrogen. We need all.” AirInsight – The propellors are now tractors and not pushers, which is an unusual configuration. What made you decide to go for this? GD – “Why would you think that?” AirInsight – I don’t know of a tail-mounted aircraft with this configuration. The engines are usually pushed. GD – “The position of the propellors is dictated by your trust line. Propellors that are in front of the nacelle are actually more efficient than when they are behind. It is more efficient to do it this way. There are ways to compensate for placement but you typically wouldn’t do it if you don’t need to. We have taken the approach of mounting our propellors on pylons aft of the fuselage, which is more commonly seen with jets. But we are still close to the center line and it is actually a very efficient configuration.” AirInsight – But you changed from pushers to pullers… GD – “The differentiating factor between the aircraft that you saw at the launch of Eviation was that at the time, the biggest engine we could get was 350 kilowatts. In order to make the aircraft perform we needed three of them. Today, we have 650 kW motors and the technology continues to grow. So you only need two, which allows us to establish a more conventional design.” “That evolution of technology is really what we are all about. We do it with a purpose. The aircraft is a nine-passenger commuter airplane. It is a pretty significant market: a third of all flights in the world are 250 nautical miles or less. The aircraft that operate them are represented by Alice, so this airplane really serves that market.” “The technology revolution that we are flying here solves some critical issues that we need to address. It is sustainability being key. This aircraft is fully-electric, which means that there are no emissions. It is designed to be very quiet, which also translates into reduced vibrations in the cabin. The experience you will get on Alice is that of the smoothness of a jet, the quietness of a turboprop, or even better, because you have eliminated all of your turbine noise.” AirInsight – What is the status of your flight test schedule? Since September 27 last year, you have done just one flight. GD – “When we did our first flight, we had our aircraft fully instrumented, so we picked up several terabytes of data from that flight. There are areas where we are still learning from the data. But what is even more important is that the correlation between the key parameters that we needed to verify in terms of the integrated power system, how it operated, and how the aircraft handled, very closely matched our predictions. So we have no need to go testing something else at this point. We are focusing our resources and endeavor on taking the prototype configuration and evolving it into the configuration that is producible.” AirInsight – But you need a specific number of flight hours? GD – “You need over 1.000 hours of flight testing, but we will need to do that with the production aircraft. It will be a couple of years away before we get into flight testing those next aircraft.” Orders and LOIs At the Paris Airshow, Eviation announced a Letter of Intent with US lessor Aerolease Aviation for 50 aircraft. In May, another lessor Monte ordered 30, and in January another 30 from Aerus. Air New Zealand was announced in December to sign an LoI for 23 aircraft as part of its Mission NextGen program. Australia’s Northern Territory Air Services intends to buy 20 aircraft. Other customers in the order book include Evia Aero (25), GlobalX (50), Cape Air (75), and DHL Express (12). AirInsight – You recently stated that Eviation has $4.0 billion in orders. GD – “The market is sizable and is larger than what we penetrated so far. Again, going back to the breakdown of air travel in the world: half of every flight is 500 nm or less. Thirty percent is 250 nm, flown by these types of planes.” “We have over 500 aircraft on Letters of Intent, which equates to a value of over $4.0 billion. That is just the current penetration, but what we have seen since our first flight is a quadruple in our share, with four times the orders coming in after we flew the aircraft. I can tell you by the conversations we are having here at the airshow, that interest continues to grow.” AirInsight – We are intrigued by the nine seats. The rumble in the jungle says that you can stretch to 19 seats. GD – “There is an evolution for every aircraft, but we are very focused on the nine-seat aircraft right now. As battery technology continues its rapid improvement, you will be able to take weight that is currently in the battery, remove it, and apply that to the fuselage structure the make the aircraft bigger. Or simply increase the useful load for cargo capabilities. So there is absolutely an evolution for Alice. Eviation is an aircraft company: we get this aircraft to market and we will work on the next one.” AirInsight – We ask because Heart Aerospace has gone from 19 to 30. One of your first customers is Cape Air and the nine-seater is their market. How many Cape Airs are there in the world? What kind of services these operators are going to be doing? GD – “When we have a nine-seat airplane under Part 135 single-pilot operations. With the economics of flying the airplane, you remove one entire pilot cost. There is a pilot shortage globally right now, so being able to operate with one pilot is attractive for that reason. You can have a single-pilot aircraft, flown by an airline transport pilot in the captain seat. And then you can have a recently graduated pilot in the co-pilot seat, building hours. So this aircraft, while it is earning money, can also you be building pilots.” AirInsight – But if you look at the market: you have a nine-seater, Heart has gone from 19 to 30, Aura Aero has a 19-seater, but Dutch start-up Maeve is even going for a 40-seater. From their analyses, the market wants at least a 40-seater all-electric aircraft. Is the Alice not too small? GD – “One of the answers is that we are able to certify under Part 23, a commuter category aircraft. With the performance-based regulations that were brought up recently by the FAA, we have a very clear path of certifying our airplane. We just need to satisfy the requirements, which you can do with an electric plane. We have that advantage. That’s why nine passengers are the sweet spot, the right number of passengers to have. From an economic standpoint, if you are adding a second pilot, you are adding extra energy to what you would want to do. As technology evolves, we can do a Part 23 19-seater aircraft. That will be a very attractive product.” AirInsight – Any plans to go higher? GD – “Again, we are an aircraft company. Right now, we are building electric airplanes, but ultimately, we are in the sustainable aviation business. So the answer is: we will keep our eyes open to all the technologies. Right now, we are dedicated to bringing Alice to market. We have got this 500 aircraft that we already are committed to. Then we need to get the 500 to 1.000 or 1.500 aircraft that come after that deliver to people as well.” “The orders we get are from established airlines or lessors. Then, there are some start-ups that are set up by people who are tremendously experienced as air operators. They know what they are doing.” AirInsight – In the US, we have seen a terrible shrinkage in regional air services. Are you going to save this? GD – “Yes, that is exactly what our mission is. On the regional air mobility side, when the airline industry was deregulated about 40 years ago, it caused a precipitate to fly in the usage of available airports. There are over 5.000 in the U, and there are 3.000 of them we can go and serve with the Alice. Today, only about 200 of them are used as regular air services and 400 as other services, so there is a pretty significant gap. Reintroducing regional air mobility will have a real benefit to society. Small communities that currently have restricted access to air travel will once again be able to have access to flight.” AirInsight – Who is your biggest rival? GD – “The biggest rival is people who aren’t willing to accept that we need to change the industry. We need to make changes to the way that people travel and people fly, because the industry, if we like it or not, is a major contributor to CO2. Some three percent of global CO2 emissions come from aviation. If we do nothing about that, by 2050 it is going to be about 50 percent of all global emissions. We need to change it, so it is so important that we bring this technology on board that does something to reduce our carbon footprint.” AirInsight – A few weeks ago, Tecnam said that it will postpone the development of its P-Volt electric nine-seater because it can’t get the business case right with the current battery technology. What does this say about the status of battery technology? Is this really the issue, or is their project not right? GD – “We are seeing fantastic evolution in battery technology over the past couple of years. In particular, in the last year. Maybe a year ago, it was very difficult to find a company that was in the aircraft battery industry. Today, there are half a dozen companies you can go to and buy batteries from. It is a complete shift and with that, all the technology is evolving. We have a line of sight on a steady evolution of the current in-production technologies and, at the same time, there are new technologies that are coming on as well.” AirInsight – Technology is going quicker than some say. GD – “It is not a matter of relativity of quicker or slower. Battery technology is exactly where we need it to be. With today’s technology and the one that will be on line as our aircraft are being delivered, we have the evolution of the batteries that will allow us to achieve our mission targets.” AirInsight - We spoke to others about Tecnam, like Maeve Chief Technical Officer Martin Nüsseler. He said that converting an existing design for battery technology isn’t working. You need to have a clean sheet design. GD – “We certainly believe that the clean sheet design is the right way to offer for electric aircraft.” AirInsight – Let’s look forward: what boxes do you have to tick in the next two years? GD – “We are following the aircraft development process, so getting the production configuration, taking the prototype. Design for the purpose of proving the technology and then going to the selection process for the systems that will go into that production airplane that will last for 20, 30, or 40 years. And then further progressing with the detailed design of the production airplane.” “Entry into service will be in late 2027. The flight test program starts 24 months before that, so that means start flying the production aircraft in late 2025.” AirInsight – No issues around certification, as you certify under Part 23? GD – “The answer is yes. We have a great relationship with the FAA and we talk to EASA and other regulators. They know what we are doing. We are frankly ahead in terms of certification. Eviation has been in a privileged position to guide the regulatory process. We were given the opportunity to brief the ICAO Congress two weeks ago on what we need. There is a general understanding that ICAO and other global organizations need to work to make sure that there is a common certification standard for electric power systems, engines, and batteries, so you are building one airplane to the world market.” AirInsight – How long will it take to charge the batteries? GD – “We will design it so you can charge for one hour of flying time in 30 minutes. So that is 30 minutes to unload passengers. The evolution of technology will get is far beyond where we enter the market. This is not the way it is going to be, this is good enough and satisfies the need.” AirInsight – Are you agnostic in terms of energy sources? GD – “We call it the energy storage system, we don’t call it the battery. We are building an electric airplane, we are focused on that. If we would develop a different source aircraft like hydrogen, it would be a different airplane. The Alice is designed around the battery system. Our energy storage system is such that you can maintain the interface with the aircraft, and have different geometries and different chemistries at the cell level.” “We are designing our batteries that it is a 3.000-cycle battery, which equates to 3.000 hours of flying time before we will replace them during scheduled replacement intervals. This is around one to 1.5 years of flying before you need to replace the battery. They are still excellent batteries when they come off the airplane and are fit for use in other applications. We are looking at using them in our charging applications, one of them is a ground-based battery that then does a direct-current to direct-current charge. The other is what we call an e-bowser or mobile charging truck, which has the benefit of not being tight to a specific point at the airport.” Just after we completed our interview and Greg Davis was set for another one at the Paris Airshow, he characterized the significance of all the disruptive aircraft projects around there for the aerospace industry. “This is like transitioning from the Lockheed Constellation to the jet era.”

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