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AssetID : 36615412
Headline : Electric Nine-Seat Aircraft Sets Sights On Transforming Regional Travel by 2022
Caption : An Israeli startup is set to take on regional air travel in the U.S. by 2022 with it's all-electric nine-seat aircraft Alice.

Eviation Aircraft unveiled its first prototype electric airplane at this year's International Paris Air Show and plans to hold test flights at Moses Lake in central Washington state.

The goal of electric aircraft is not to replace long-haul commercial air travel but to focus servicing shorter routes. Targeting highly-trafficked “middle mile” commutes around the world for routes like France’s Paris to Toulouse, Norway’s Oslo to Trondheim and America’s San Jose to San Diego, Alice is a radical rethinking of the cost, experience and environmental impact of regional travel.

Air carriers, like their ground mobility peers, are moving to replace expensive, aging fleets with electric options that dramatically reduce maintenance and operating costs. Alice will reduce those carrier costs by up to 70 percent, while bringing travelers a cost-competitive, emissionfree option.

Eviation has agreements in place with both Siemens and magniX for Alice's propulsion systems, offering its customers a choice of two options. Both will see a main pusher propellor on the end of its tail along with one on both wingtips, all outputting 260 kW. These propel the 12.2-meter (40-ft) aircraft to a cruise speed of 240 knots (276 mph, 445 km/h), and carry up to nine passengers across distances of up to 650 mi (1,046 km).

Eviation’s first customer will be Cape Air, which is headquartered in Massachusetts but flies general-aviation commuter routes in the Midwest, Montana and the Caribbean as well as in the northeastern United States.

Eviation CEO Omer Bar-Yohay told reporters at the Paris show that Cape Air will get a “double-digit fleet” of the planes in the next five years.

The company hope to win certification for the Alice aircraft from the Federal Aviation Administration by late 2021 or early 2022.
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