‘This is not the end of the road’ says former Eviation CEO
Eviation Aircraft has laid off the majority of its staff and put a “temporary pause” –something we are fast becoming accustomed to in 2025 – on its electric aircraft programme while it looks for fresh funding.
The electric aircraft developer cited a need to search for the right “long-term partnerships” (i.e. financial backers) to get regional air mobility off the ground. This was a sentiment echoed by its majority shareholder Clermont Group.
“We at Eviation are proud of what we have accomplished in advancing electric flight,” said Andre Stein, CEO of Eviation, who took over the role in December 2023, in a statement. “This decision was not made lightly. However, we believe this temporary pause is a necessary step to focus on identifying the right long-term partnerships to help us make electric commercial regional flight a reality. We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to our customers and partners for their support for the Alice programme. And we would especially like to thank our employees for their hard work in accelerating the electric revolution in aviation.”
Eviation had previously been perceived as a leader in the regional air mobility segment of AAM. In September 2022, the company’s technology demonstrator completed a maiden flight, becoming one of the first in the cohort of electric hopefuls to do so. The developer also had a strong pre-order book for its Alice aircraft with more than 600 aircraft earmarked for delivery to customers including Cape Air, Evia Aero and Monte.
Despite this substantial progress, Eviation is yet to declare when it will construct and begin flying a prototype that can allow it to begin FAA type certification testing. The closest it has got was a conceptual design review conducted with support from TLG Aerospace. At the time Stein heralded the review as a “major step in Alice’s journey”, moving the firm “significantly closer to aircraft certification and entry into service”.
From the outside looking in, it feels as though Eviation has taken the latest bed in the electric flight ER. And while this may be true for now, the company’s former CEO Gregory Davis, who led it through its maiden demonstrator flight, is confident this is not the end for Eviation.
“I want to start by saying I feel sorry for the team over there,” he tells us. “I still very much believe in the concept, and I feel the people involved maybe deserved a bit better, but such is the way of the industry right now.”
Davis references companies such as Overair, Lilium and Volocopter who have all fallen prey to the “funding gap” with venture funding largely focused on AI and niche defence tech – often both rolled into one.
“I keep thinking about the customers,” Davis continues. “Eviation has such a strong order book [more than $2.5bn in pre-orders] and they were people who actually want the aircraft to augment their services. It means they are going to have to wait much longer for the aircraft to board.”
Davis is still of the opinion that short-range electric commuter aircraft are desirable and will continue to be developed by companies like Eviation. He believes a likely scenario for the company would see it lie dormant running a skeleton staff until either fresh financial backing for the existing company is found – even if that means going hybrid – or someone offers to buy the intellectual property.
“These kinds of events happening in AAM have been predicted for years now,” says Davis. “I remember an article from 2022 talking about eVTOLs, and the famous last line read: ‘There will be blood’, essentially predicting massive consolidation in the sector.”
However, Davis remarks for all of the closures the industry has witnessed to date, he expected more consolidation amongst them. “I mean there is an interesting play right now between Anduril and Archer, we will see how that works out. But I’m a little bit surprised that some of the more conservative incumbents haven’t actually gone in and started playing the acquisition game.”
A problem facing electric aircraft hopefuls like Eviation now is that environmental sustainability has to increasingly make sense for the bank balance too. It was probably always the case, but now people are making no bones about it. However, when Eviation was flying high in the pandemic years of 2020 through 2022, that was nowhere near as evident.
“There was a lot of discussion about the need to eliminate CO2 and other pollutants from aviation during the pandemic,” explains Davis. “But what I have to say is that it was really easy to poke at it when you couldn’t fly anywhere. Now people just want cheap flights again.”
From the get-go Davis has argued that economic sustainability is just as important as environmental to make electric aircraft services a reality. He hopes now that pressures have eased slightly on the latter it could allow enough room for technologies such as Alice to be developed to a point where they become “economically dominant”.
The need for a realistic business case is also what drove his interest in the conventional takeoff, regional mobility side of the AAM spectrum. “Especially with short range routes where you can use an electric aircraft that doesn’t overly tax the battery systems on takeoff and is manageable with reasonable charge and discharge rates.
“There has to be an achievable crossover point during the life of the aircraft where you save money for it to be attracted to a real operator,” he adds.
But even with that business case in their back pocket, $140m in funding across two rounds and a crewed technology demonstrator in the air, Eviation has not yet earmarked a year it wants to enter service, let alone built a prototype to get there.
The problem certainly lies in a lack of funding. “I said it at the Revolution.Aero event in 2022, just after our first flight, it is investment. Whether VTOL, CTOL, whatever, we are all pulling from the same pool of money. So, unfortunately it is the same problem for everyone right now,” says Davis.
It is also hard to see it changing, unless someone makes a new compelling economic argument or revolutionary batteries suddenly come on the market. “But that is probably five to 10 years away. In the intervening period, I think the companies that survive will be those that have direct investment from military programmes. A good old-fashioned, US Air Force style competition like the kind that funded the C5 or the 747 development.”
Eviation may struggle to achieve this due to its commuter centric design, but aviation has seen bigger pivots before. The dual purpose road is certainly an avenue receiving more footfall lately.
Subscribe to our free newsletter
For more deep dives from SAF Investor, subscribe to our email newsletter.
