Maeve ditches all-electric for hybrid-electric 80-seater

Dutch start-up Maeve Aerospace has radically redesigned its regional aircraft concept. From an all-electric 52-seater using batteries, Maeve now intends to bring a hybrid-electric 80-seater to the market in 2031. The company announced the M80 model in a media release on Monday morning, but AirInsight spoke to Maeve. “The redesign is the result of customer feedback, market analysis, and the conviction that we can reduce carbon dioxide more with this aircraft. We think 80-seaters have a healthy future in the market,” says CEO Jan-Willem Heinen. When Maeve launched as Venturi Aerospace in 2021, it planned to develop an all-electric 44-seater with eight electric motors under a high-wing concept. Renamed Maeve in 2022, Heinen told AirInsight last year that a 44-seater hits the sweet spot of what the future regional market wants. A 60-seater would also be feasible, but would depend on how quickly battery technology would develop. The downside of an all-battery aircraft is that the battery packs are heavy and take up all the belly space almost from nose to tail. The original full-electric Maeve 01 had a range of 550 kilometers but this was reduced to 460 kilometers for the 52-seater that was unveiled in April this year and also on display as a model at the Paris Airshow. Flawed concept It was not long after Martin Nüsseler joined Maeve in April that he thought the 01 would need a complete rethink. Nüsseler joined as CTO from Deutsche Aircraft and has worked with Airbus on the A350 and A400M. He says it politely, but the German concluded that Maeve was working on the wrong concept. And he was able to convince Heinen and co-founder Joost Dieben that a change was needed. “You should not push yourself on the technology, you should push a solution. These are two things that people who join aviation are doing wrong. They are so focused on pushing a certain technology but not on what is the overall opportunity you have to provide for a customer.” According to Nüsseler, the original Maeve concept was flawed: “The performance was very limited, it was too heavy. It’s what you also see with eVTOLs: people think that when you provide a new technology, the market will follow. But it doesn’t work like that. All-electric, ultra-short-range aircraft have limitations from an air traffic management point of view.” This is because the aircraft would fly too slow. In the US, this is one of the reasons why the ATR turboprop is not effective on longer routes, says Nüsseler, because it is too slow and flies too low. “Second, the benefits of an all-electric aircraft from a decarbonization standpoint would be very limited. With our aircraft, we would contribute more or less nothing. The operational performance, the number of passengers you can carry over a distance, and the number of customers who would like this aircraft would be so small, that you have no positive impact on decarbonization.” “The most sustainable is an aircraft that reduces the energy per passenger as much as possible, it is an aircraft that fits the existing (airport and ATM) infrastructure, and it has to have the right size for the market. For regional, that is below 100 seats, mostly between 80 and 100 seats.” Stretched fuselage Maeve took notice of Nüsseler’s analysis. The result is the M80. While the aircraft still has the looks of the 01, it is a very different aircraft. The elliptical fuselage has been stretched by seven meters to accommodate 84 passengers in a single-class layout and 76 in a dual-class configuration. The high-wing has a span of 26 meters compared to 29.8 meters on the previous version. The configuration is still being developed, said Chief Technology Officer Martin Nüsseler, with a likely change of the wing sweep to be decided next year. The nose section will also change. Instead of four electromotors under each wing, there are now two hybrid-electric powerplants. The M80 will use electric power for take-off and climb with nearly half the power required by a conventional turboprop engine. This improves thermal and electric efficiency to over 60 percent, says Nüsseler. For cruise, the turboprop will be used, “but we will use a much smaller engine. This is why we can significantly reduce fuel consumption.” Nüsseler doesn’t want to disclose the identity of the engine maker but confirms that Maeve has had extensive discussions with GE Aerospace, Rolls-Royce, and Pratt & Whitney. The final selection will be announced in the early months of 2024. “I know since eight years of engine technology, which is not yet in place in aviation, which supports this game-changing performance. It is at technology readiness level 6, which exactly meets our schedule,” says Nüsseler. “Very soon in the new year, there will be an announcement with whom we will work together on the hybrid engines. This will give us credibility and affect the rest of the supply chain, which already has changed. Everybody likes to participate in this aircraft. Before that, everybody was questioning the market for an aircraft with only a 200nm range.” Triple the range The Maeve M80 will have ten battery packs positioned in the belly hold, which leaves just 12 cubic meters of space for luggage. The original luggage hold aft in the cabin has been deleted. The maximum payload is 8.500 kilograms, and the maximum take-off weight is now 29.800 kilograms, down from some 44.000 kilograms of the 01. In its new hybrid-electric iteration, the Maeve triples the operational range to 1.482 kilometers/800nm, flying at 400 knots at 35.000 feet. Runway field performance is 1.800 meters for take-offs and 1.300 meters for landings. From Brussels Airport, the M80 can cover almost the whole of Europe, while it would cover almost half of the US when operating out of Salt Lake City or Chicago. With these characteristics, Maeve thinks the M80 is ideally positioned between 50 to 80-seater turboprops and 50 to 100-seater regional jets. It flies faster than the former but has a lower fuel consumption per passenger than both aircraft types. Trip costs would be 20 percent lower compared to a turboprop and 25 percent compared to a jet. “Our aircraft is as cheap as the older 50-seater jet from an operational cost perspective. There is no risk in the load factor. I wanted some that combine the efficiency of a propellor but reach the performance of a regional jet and replace exactly these aircraft that form a climate impact today are the worst solution. We want to replace the Embraers, the CRJs,” says Martin Nüsseler. Battery limitations Maeve is not the first one to ditch its all-electric design. Swedish start-up Heart Aerospace did the same in September 2022, when it upsized its ES19 to the bigger ES30 and included two turbogenerators in the tailplane to extend the range. Does this mean that an all-electric regional aircraft relying only on batteries is not feasible? “In the next 20 years, batteries will not enable longer ranges. This is very clear. The question for us was: will people accept these ultra-short-range aircraft, is there a sufficient market for them? The answer is no.” It is the same with hydrogen: “The route for implementation of hydrogen is so complex, I don’t think it will come. It is much easier to use hydrogen to produce power-to-liquid fuel and de-risk the use of hydrogen in aircraft and at airports.” Martin Nüsseler speaking to media at the Paris Airshow in June, in front of the previous Maeve 01. (Richard Schuurman) Martin Nüsseler says that Maeve has been in discussion with various airlines for some time. He is hopeful to conclude an agreement soon: “We are in discussions with large regional airlines in the US and in Canada, but also Europe. They support us with the specifications of the aircraft, and we have implemented their requirements. We like not to talk just to the sustainability managers of airlines and make MoUs for no value, as fleet managers tell you something different when you talk to them. We want to talk with someone who can implement it. Our business case is now based on three to four times the potential markets. And as we are no longer dependent on the development of the batteries, we have de-risked the business case.” While based in Delft in The Netherlands, Maeve has recently opened a second office in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich (Germany). That’s familiar territory for Nüsseler, who has worked there when he was CTO with Deutsche Aircraft. Maeve wants to tap into the labor market, which includes thousands of engineers who work in the aerospace industry around Munich. “We are ramping up mainly from an airframe engineering and system engineering point of view. There are working 12.000 people here, a lot of good companies where you could get good competencies. But we also want to expand our European footprint. It helps to be on two fronts, especially when Germany’s Aerospace Center DLR and Dutch NLR will open up a new fund next year. It also increases our support from Europe.” It doesn’t mean that Maeve plans to locate its assembly in Oberpfaffenhofen too, Nüsseler stresses. That decision will be made later. He also points out that Deutsche Aerospace has selected Leipzig for final assembly because of limitations in the Munich area.

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