Electric, Hybrid and eVTOL Aircraft: An Honest Status Report
Battery-powered aircraft exist, but none can yet do what a business jet does. Here is where air taxis, hybrid commuters and electric trainers stand, including the projects that failed.
Electric aircraft attract more headlines than almost any other part of aviation, and more money has been lost on them than on most. Some projects are flying well; others have collapsed. None of them does what a business jet does, and the reason is basic physics.
The energy problem
Jet fuel stores about 12,000 watt-hours of energy per kilogram. The best lithium-ion battery cells in production store roughly 250 to 300, and a complete battery pack stores less. That gap of around 40 times shapes everything. An aircraft that must carry its batteries also does not get lighter as it uses energy, unlike one that burns fuel. Electric flight therefore works best on short trips with small payloads, and current batteries cannot carry a jet across a continent.
The first fully certified electric aircraft shows the scale. The Pipistrel Velis Electro, a two-seat trainer, received its EASA type certificate on 10 June 2020. Its 20 kilowatt-hours of batteries give about 50 minutes of flight plus reserves, which is enough for circuits around an airfield.
Air taxis: the eVTOL race
Most of the investment has gone into eVTOLs: electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft with several rotors, designed as quiet air taxis for trips of a few dozen miles. That is the part of the market closest to private flying, because the obvious first customers are people who already take helicopters from city centres to airports and holiday homes.
Joby Aviation leads in the United States. Its S4 carries a pilot and four passengers, with a range of up to 150 miles and a top speed of 200 mph. In August 2025 it bought the passenger business of Blade, the helicopter shuttle operator, for $125 million. In March 2026 it began flying its first FAA-conforming aircraft, a key step in certification, and on 27 April 2026 it flew from JFK Airport to the West 30th Street Heliport in Manhattan in about 15 minutes. Archer Aviation's Midnight, also designed for four passengers, is in flight test with a stated range of about 100 miles. In China, EHang's two-seat, pilotless EH216-S received its type certificate from the Civil Aviation Administration of China in October 2023. The FAA published its rules for training and operating powered-lift aircraft in October 2024.
The failures are just as instructive. Lilium, the German company that raised more than $1 billion for a jet-powered electric design, entered insolvency in October 2024, stopped operations in December and filed again in February 2025. Volocopter, another German developer, filed for insolvency at the end of 2024 before being taken over by a new owner.
Electric and hybrid aeroplanes
Fixed-wing designs avoid the energy cost of hovering. Beta Technologies' Alia CX300, a five-passenger conventional aircraft, carried four people from East Hampton to JFK in June 2025, described as the first electric passenger flight in the United States, and has been trialled by Air New Zealand and Bristow. Eviation's nine-seat Alice first flew on 27 September 2022, but the company laid off most of its staff in early 2025 and the programme is paused.
Hybrids combine batteries with a fuel-burning generator to stretch range. Heart Aerospace, which moved its headquarters from Sweden to Los Angeles in 2025, is developing the 30-seat ES-30, with a planned electric-only range of 200 kilometres and 400 kilometres in hybrid mode; its X1 demonstrator flew in August 2026. Joby flew a hybrid version of its aircraft in November 2025.
Where this leaves private flying
No business jet or business turboprop manufacturer offers an electric or hybrid model. The closest effort is EcoPulse, a hybrid-electric demonstrator built on a Daher TBM by Daher, Airbus and Safran, which first flew in 2023 as a research aircraft rather than a product. The JetAtlas catalogue therefore has no aircraft in this category. For the jet makers, sustainable aviation fuel is the realistic tool for cutting emissions in the medium term.
The likely early effect on private travel is at the short end: electric air taxis replacing helicopter shuttles between city heliports and airports, where Joby's purchase of Blade points. Even there, commercial service depends on completing FAA certification, building charging infrastructure at heliports and proving that the aircraft are as quiet and reliable as promised. Every date announced so far should be read as a target, not a timetable.