Maeve Aerospace believes that batteries provided by Amprius will be sufficient to support an all-electric aircraft carrying 44 passengers on city pairs of up to 460 kilometers (250 nm) by 2029. The start-up says its design will be scalable so that as propulsion technology improves both payload and range can be increased progressively to more than 50 passengers and 710 kilometers.

Regent is inviting prospective customers and partners to inspect a full-scale mock-up of the Viceroy sea glider it expects to be ready for passenger-carrying commercial flights in 2025. It also announced the selection of key suppliers for the electric-powered vehicles' motors and batteries.

Autonomous aviation pioneer Xwing says it has formally begun the FAA approval process for its “Superpilot” autonomous flight control system, which the company plans to use for pilotless cargo delivery flights. Xwing says it has formally begun the FAA approval process for its “Superpilot” autonomous flight control system, which the company plans to use for remotely piloted cargo delivery flights. Xwing says it recently filed its project-specific certification plan with the FAA, making the company’s converted Cessna Caravan airplane the first standard-category large uncrewed aircraft system to receive official project designation from the agency.

Merlin, a Boston-based company developing “drop-in” autonomy kits for legacy fixed-wing aircraft, has received a $1 million contract from the FAA to demonstrate its autonomous flight control technology in the National Airspace System. Flight trials will take place over Alaska starting in the second quarter of 2023, and all test flights will have safety pilots on board to monitor the airplanes, which initially will be remotely operated or monitored by a pilot on the ground.

Taiho is the second company to publicly commit to buying SkyDrive's SD-05 two-seat eVTOL aircraft, which will have a range of just 10 kilometers and is expected to enter service in 2025. Japan-based SkyDrive has also logged preorders from one of its early backers, the venture capitalist Kotaro Chiba, and from Vietnam's Pacific Group.

As the city of Miami gears up to become a possible early adopter of eVTOL air taxi services, a local college has launched a consortium of academic, industry, and government partners to help bring the vision of urban air mobility to fruition. The University of Miami's College of Engineering has announced the creation of the Miami Engineering Autonomous Mobility Initiative, which “aims to advance autonomous mobility technology and anticipate challenges to implementation in today’s cities.”

Evolito will provide electric motors and inverters for Cranfield Aerospace Solutions' plans to convert Britten-Norman Islander regional aircraft to hydrogen propulsion. Under the UK-based Project Fresson, the same technology could eventually power larger airliners.

With the FAA determining that its FlightOS technology satisfies the current means-of-compliance requirements for flight controls, Skyryse believes it could install the first of the new systems on existing helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft under supplemental type certificates during 2024.

With backing from new shareholder Sumitomo Mitsui Finance and Leasing Company, LCI is stepping up efforts to expand its lease portfolio to include eVTOL vehicles and drones alongside helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. The company's CEO, Jaspal Jandu, told FutureFlight that the exciting new sector will require lessors to offer support for associated equipment, including electric batteries and recharging infrastructure.

Developers of new electric aircraft have learned a lot from electric car pioneers such as Tesla, but they face their own challenges in ensuring that batteries and electric motors are fit for aerospace applications, including eVTOL air-taxi services. Technical expert Sergio Cecutta of SMG Consulting explained how the technology is being applied in aviation, in addition to the current performance limits and how these might be expanded.