For all the blather about electric airplanes, you’d think by now there would be at least three or four to pick from and compare. But no, except for electric motorgliders, there’s only one commercially available electric airplane, Pipistrel’s Alpha Electro.
Despite the lack of a refined regulatory framework, Pipistrel is finding buyers for the Electro around the world, although not in large volume. But between Electro sales, legacy gasoline models and an aspirational urban air mobility market, Pipistrel recently opened a new factory in Gorizia, Italy, just across the border from its headquarters in Slovenia. The new facility is large and has vastly more capacity then it’s using now. When I visited in May 2019, the company was building as many as five Electros a month.