Eviation’s Orca surveillance drone at 2017 Paris Air Show Israeli startup Eviation plans to build an all-electric short-haul 9-pax airliner capable of flights up to 600 miles and have it flying by 2020. Interview with co-founder and CEO Omer Bar-Yohay A decade ago, talk of electric airplanes was more fantasy than fact. Sleek sailplanes might sport a small motor and battery for extend their time in the air, but beyond that, the concept just wasn’t practical at a commercial level. Then Solar Impulse circled the planet on solar-power alone. Industrial titans like Siemens and Airbus took serious interest in the idea. A handful of startups like Aero Electric Aircraft Corporation jumped into the electric trainer plane market. Most recently, a trio of firms have gotten funding to build pure electric and hybrid-electric commercial aircraft, including a three year-old startup in Israel called Eviation . What began as a drone […]