Tecnam's P-Volt aircraft will be powered by an electric propulsion system being developed by Rolls-Royce. The new model is based on the Italian manufacturer's existing piston-powered P2012 aircraft and will support the Norwegian air transport industry's goal of going carbon-neutral by 2040.

Engineering professor Satyanarayanan Chakravarthy founded ePlane with one of his students at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He sees the market for operating multiple short-hop rides around congested cities as being the primary opportunity for eVTOL aircraft developers. With the first flight of a full prototype set for around March 2022, details of the company's design are still very limited.

The Norwegian Safety Investigation Authority recommended several improvements to the flight and maintenance manuals for Pipistrel's Alpha Electro electric light aircraft after a power failure caused by overheating of the power controller. Its report said it needs to be clearer to the pilot how to restart the motor after an inflight loss of power and how to deploy the emergency parachute.

Uber Elevate identified Melbourne, Australia, as an early-adopter location for its planned ride-hailing eVTOL aircraft operations, but these plans appear to have evaporated since Uber sold the platform to Joby Aviation. Ground infrastructure specialist Clem Newton-Brown and his company Skyportz want to help aircraft developers and prospective operators to revive these plans.

Business aviation executives Bill Minkoff and Edwin Brenninkmeyer are cofounding the Advanced Air Mobility Association to promote advances in electric aircraft technology and operations. The group plans to hold a symposium in Silicon Valley in 2022 and to introduce a trophy to honor excellence in electric aviation.

Automation specialist Airio is the latest partner to sign up to help Varon Vehicles to develop urban air mobility networks planned for various South American cities. Its Intelligent Flightpath Navigation system uses algorithms to define safe flight paths for eVTOL aircraft.

The open-architecture software and hardware used by Windhover Labs for its flight computer should make it easy to integrate with a variety of new aircraft applications. The company believes that this will provide a more cost-effective approach for eVTOL programs that are still in the early stages of development.

In this video, Horizon Aircraft shows what it says is the secret sauce in its proposed Cavorite X5 eVTOL aircraft. The Canadian company, which is in the process of being acquired by Astro Aerospace, claims that what sets it apart are the arrays of ducted fans in the five-passenger design's wing and canard. This patent-pending system involves the upper and lower wing surfaces retracting to allow the ducted fans to provide vertical lift. For cruise flight, the surfaces move back into position, covering the fans so that the X5 flies like a conventional fixed-wing aircraft with a single pusher propeller providing horizontal thrust. In recent weeks, Horizon has been making a series of claims highlighting what it says are deficiencies in rival eVTOL designs. For instance, it claims that rivals Joby and Archer will require batteries weighing more than 600 kg for their respective eVTOLs, while it says the Cavorite needs only 200 kg of batteries. At face value, the Cavorite, which is named after a character in an H.G. Wells science-fiction novel, seems quite similar to the German Lilium Jet, which also features wing-mounted ducted fans. 

Samad Aerospace has plans for up to four electric aircraft programs but is prioritizing work on the five-passenger e-Starling and a two-seat Q-Starling personal vehicle.