Embraer spin-out Eve Air Mobility has now accumulated 28 flights with the first engineering prototype of its planned E100 electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) since its 19 December maiden sortie.
Speaking to FlightGlobal at the Verticon event in Atlanta, chief executive Johann Bordais says the company has been progressively opening the flight envelope for the remotely piloted eVTOL, including sorties now lasting over 1h, from its Gaviao Peixoto facility in Brazil.
After a brief lay-up in February, the test asset has now returned to the air, performing “one or two flights per day”, and is now regularly reaching speeds of around 30kt (55km/h).
Eve will progressively raise that figure in the coming months, building through 50kt, until the critical 80kt threshold where the eVTOL transitions to wing-borne flight.
Beyond that point, thrust is provided solely by the aircraft’s rear-mounted pusher propeller, driven by a Beta Technologies-supplied electric motor, and the lift rotors stowed.
Eve expects to amass around 300 flights with the engineering prototype this year before moving on, in the first half of 2027, to the first of six conforming prototypes for the E100. The remainder will follow at one-month intervals.
That aircraft will incorporate modifications based on learnings from the initial flight campaign, notably around the powertrain and electrical system.
“Electrification is giving us some good days and nights of work,” says Bordais. “The rest is known technology for Embraer and Eve.”
Additionally, the E100 will incorporate wheeled landing gear, rather than the skid gear of the engineering prototype.
Certification from Brazilian civil aviation regulator ANAC is targeted for 2028.
While Nidec Aerospace – a joint venture between Embraer and Nidec – will supply the lift motors on the E100, Eve has picked Beta to supply the electric motor for the pusher unit, a move that raised eyebrows given the US firm is also developing a competing eVTOL aircraft.
But Bordais is unconcerned that Eve may be funding a rival through the move. “Right now we are creating a new segment – we all need each other to prove it is happening.
“They have a good product they have been maturing over the years and we wanted to derisk our [aircraft].”
Serial production of the E100 is planned to take place in Taubate, Brazil at an existing site currently owned by Embraer.
Eve has since signed a rental agreement for the building with its parent company and will transfer production from its Embraer’s Sao Jose dos Campos headquarters after it has assembled the sixth and final conforming prototype.
Taubate will have capacity at first to build up to 120 E100s per year, rising to a maximum rate of 480 aircraft within around three years. Additional production sites located closer to areas of customer demand are also envisaged.
Although Embraer remains focused on achieving civil certification and service entry for the full-electric E100, it has begun analysing the potential for both military and hybrid-electric variants.
A military model – that would be commercialised through Embraer Defence & Security – “is something we are looking in to” alongside “air forces and armies around the world”.
Meanwhile, initial studies are being carried out into the potential for a hybrid powertrain, likely using a thermal engine to charge the aircraft’s batteries in flight, boosting range.
But Bordais insists no decision has been made on hybrid power, with the focus instead on achieving baseline certification: “We know what we have to do for the next three years,” he says.
“Let’s make sure we get it to the public and it can demonstrate this is happening, this is the present, not the future.”
