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Evio, a Canadian start-up producing a 76-seat hybrid-electric airplane with help from Boeing and Pratt & Whitney, is positioning what it calls a “strong hybrid” propulsion architecture as the key to restoring profitability on where airline services have been dwindling for decades.

Speaking with AIN, Evio co-founder, chairman, and CEO Michael Derman said the Evio 810 clean-sheet aircraft program is heavily focused on operator economics. “That’s really what this has been [about] from day one, first and foremost: how to stem the tide from what we’ve seen—a drastic drop in connectivity to the smaller markets—and being able to maintain those thin routes still profitably.” When it emerged from stealth in December, Evio announced that two major airlines had already placed .

While some pioneers of hybrid-electric aviation technologies prefer to with new powertrains, others have begun developing and testing so-called concepts, which use electric power to supplement conventional engines. With the “strong hybrid” approach, electricity is the primary, mission-critical source of power, and turbine engines function as a secondary booster. “It’s an all-electric aircraft first, and the turbines are there for range extension,” Derman said.

The Evio 810 is optimized for short, all-electric flights up to 500 nm, a range that will increase as battery technology matures. It is designed to take off and land on battery power alone, reducing noise and emissions in the communities it serves.

When Evio was mulling over the configuration for its planned hybrid-electric airliner, “we could not get the economics to pencil for an operator with a mild hybrid, whether it was a modification or it was a clean-sheet mild hybrid,” Derman said. The company determined that both clean-sheet mild hybrids and modified legacy aircraft would fail to deliver compelling economics after accounting for certification complexities and the added bill of materials.

Founded about seven years ago, the company initially explored aircraft in the 19- to 30-seat category but shifted its focus after concluding that rising crew costs and airline upgauging trends favored larger platforms. Evio is now targeting the 76- to 88-seat segment, which Derman described as a “sweet spot” for in the U.S. and single-class service in Europe.

The Evio 810 configuration features four Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6E turboprop engines, an architecture that Derman acknowledged appears counterintuitive in a market that increasingly prioritizes lower maintenance costs. However, he argued that the company’s proprietary system integration enables lower turbine utilization, thereby actually reducing maintenance costs.

“Most people look at four nacelles and they think that's antithetical from a maintenance cost standpoint,” because two engines cost less to maintain than four, he said. “It's actually the opposite for our architectural approach… The way that we have our architecture, which is our proprietary approach, that allows us to really drive down maintenance costs and the utilization of the turbines.”

Beyond fuel savings and maintenance reductions, Derman said the business case for the Evio 810 hinges on passenger appeal. The aircraft is designed with a fuselage wider than that of current regional jets, offering a cabin experience closer to that of a single-aisle airliner.

Evio is headquartered in Montreal and employs about 45 people, drawing on engineering talent with experience across Bombardier, Embraer, Bell, and other major aerospace manufacturers. The company raised a Series A round in 2023 and is preparing for a Series B financing. Rather than flying prototypes or technology demonstrators, Evio plans to proceed directly to certification-ready test aircraft that will fly later this decade.

Derman emphasized that the program relies on high-technology-readiness-level components to reduce certification risk. “There's enough challenges in certification as is, and you have to be very measured in where you want to take your program risk. So for us, from an architectural standpoint, hardware that we're utilizing either has to be existing and ubiquitous, or at least a very high TRL and certified as we go into our [entry into service],” he said. “The idea and the novelty is how you use these systems and interconnect them in a very creative way to drive those operator economics.”