The world’s first production ready extended-range electric aircraft known as the GT4 is designed with more than a few similarities to the Chevy Volt.
Its Oregon-based maker – coincidentally called Volta Volare – aims to begin building by year’s end, is taking orders now, and yesterday its visionary founder and CEO Paul Peterson told us the carbon-fiber constructed, series hybrid airplane is a bridge leading to all-electric flight.
The four seater – which could squeeze one more small person in if needed – relies on either a Rotax or Yamaha SHO 6-cylinder, 1.5-liter supercharged gasoline engine as the generator. The personal watercraft-sourced powerplant augments twin electric motors capable of a maximum 600 horsepower equivalent – with 400 horsepower of sustainable driving force – that turns a single rear-mounted, four-blade push prop made of carbon composite.

It will take off and cruise using only batteries.
Batteries are a 236-cell Dow Kokam lithium polymer array weighing 900 pounds, delivering 55 kilowatt-hours, and capable of take-off, climbing and cruising up to 300 miles on EV power alone.
In an interview yesterday, Peterson said the Canard-style airframe was selected as a well-proven design to push the envelope of his company’s powertrain design work intended to make a safer and better airplane.
“We think that it’s about time that someone introduced a hybrid general aviation aircraft. Current GA powerplants and design are … simply … ancient and dogmatic… and soon to be obsolete given what is being developed in China and Europe,” Peterson said. “So, as part of our mission being to help revitalize the American General Aviation industry (second only to producing the safest private aircraft on or above the earth), we figured we might as well be the ones to do it.”
The Canard pusher design is proven to be sleek and fast, and it is a configuration said to be much less likely to stall or spin.
Furthermore, the airframe utilizes a three-wing design that let Volta Volare’s engineers strategically place batteries for optimal weight distribution.

This is one place to avoid range anxiety.
Peterson said personal watercraft engines cost less than some purpose-made aircraft engines, while meeting engineering criteria. For example, a personal watercraft must operate under a high hydrodynamic load, he said, and often sees usage at either idle or full throttle, and engines built for such abuse would be better than, for example, a superbike engine.
Once the battery controller kicks on the range extender – at 25 percent battery depletion – unlike the Volt in charge-sustaining mode, it will recharge the airborne battery pack to full charge.
On the ground, charging is more conventional Peterson says.
“With each aircraft we are offering a Level II charging station (with J1772 interface) for installation in the aircraft owners’ hangars, and are currently developing a terrestrial FBO-based public charging station to be deployed at GA airports,” he said. “Since aircraft hangar rooftops are basic in their architecture and woefully underutilized, we are also developing a hangar solar package for our customers to not only charge their aircraft from, but also to sell power back to the grid through. With a Level II charger, EViators can expect to charge the ESS to full within 8 hours.”
The GT4’s two radial-gap electric motors share the same shaft and are redundant in part for safety, Peterson said.
Volta Volare further says the GT4′s “EViation Drive system” is one of the safest ever devised for general aviation. In theory, it has one moving part – if one discounts the range extender.
“Our EViation Drive and ESS [energy storage system] delivers more torque and horsepower than any 20th century ICE,” the company says on its Web site. “That it does so silently and with near-zero emissions is just the beginning. With one moving part, the hybrid electric EViation Drive requires minimal maintenance and offers TBO times up to ten X of an ICE.”

Electric motors turn the prop. Volta Volare says its design saves 20 percent in ownership costs, 80 percent in operational costs, and 80 percent in drive maintenance costs.
The aircraft – custom hand made – will cost $495,000 and is not a starter plane.
“She is far and away the most technologically advanced private aircraft available anywhere on earth,” the company says.
Top speed is around 350 mph, optimal cruising speed is a bit under 200 mph, and the airframe is engineered to sustain a 9g positive load, and 7g negative load.
Its total range is 600 nautical miles with 23 gallons of regular unleaded gas on board and fully charged batteries.
Maximum operational ceiling is around 18,000 feet, Peterson said, although you’d need oxygen by FAA rules above 12,000 feet.
Ideally, the GT4 works at an altitude similar to other personal aircraft of 10,000-15,000 feet.
Peterson said maintenance is intended to be much lower than with other common designs – many of which are derived from 1940s technology – and above all, safety is the priority.
“Our primary mission is to increase the safety of pilots and passengers,” Peterson said. “Period, and end of story.
Second priority, he said, is to reduce cost of operation and maintenance.

As one example, a 200-mile jaunt could cost maybe $20 in electricity versus $80 in leaded high-octane aviation gas – which this plane doesn’t use even in the generator.
Popular Science also wrote about this aircraft a few days aqo, reiterating the company’s talk of a “largely maintenance-free” design for the “electric” aircraft, but we asked what about the supercharged range extender?
Engine maintenance would be required, Peterson agreed, but he anticipates lower costs here as well.
Further, he said the sleek looking airplane is intended to be an “ultimate test bed,” and showcase for E-REV technology leading to full EV.

VoltaVolare is also co-developing a fully electric powertrain, and the GT4 is designed to accept a retrofit at a later date assuming more powerful energy storage becomes available.
With respect for those in the aviation business already building battery electric planes, Peterson said they are not ready for prime time due to insufficient battery energy density, but he intends to be there when the technology moves to the next level.
Meanwhile, Peterson said he searches the world for the latest on battery tech, has friendships with leaders in the battery research field, and his up-close and personal perspective is next-gen batteries could be ready in as soon as five years, if not a little longer.
If all this sounds neat, and you are not yet licensed to fly, you could be for maybe $4-6,000 and a few months study, if you’re “a good stick” and talented, said Peterson, a former Air Force pilot, but alas, Volta Volare does not intend to make a starter plane.

The touch-screen glass cockpit boasts full synthetic vision (an optional HUD is available). Passengers can take in movies, music and games, or get work done with multiple A/V jacks, power plugs, USB ports, fold-down screens and slide-out table tops.
Thus far interest in the GT4 has been expressed by experienced pilots who are high-net worth, technophiles, including some who are celebrities that prefer to remain anonymous, he said.
And if you are wondering, the company’s funding does not rely on venture capital or government money, Peterson said.
“We are a private, closely-held company, and we have been very, very careful to remain out of the limelight until now. We expect to remain private until such time as our customers demand further production capacity, and even then we’ll likely avoid the old-timey VC process and go with the up-and-coming crowd sourcing method of funding,” he said. “Ultimately we intend to provide fleet management / membership services to the masses, in much the same way that fractional ownership / jet leasing services operate, and it just makes sense to me that everyone is better off if we share the company’s financial upside with the people that use and benefit from this technology and service offering.”
The goal, he said, is to ultimately benefit society by advancing personal aviation with a more environmentally sound solution intended to eventually go full-electric.
“One of our fundamental tenets from day one has been: If we can deliver a safe, high performance aircraft that people want to be seen in, one which costs substantially less per hour / passenger mile to operate, we will have created a paradigm shift wherein many more of us than just the 1 percent can enjoy the luxury and convenience of private air travel,” Peterson said. “So why should only they reap the benefit of this nascent industry’s growth?”
In time also, Peterson said, the company will look to build 6- and 8-seater and larger planes leading to transcontinental designs – as far in the future as that may sound to some now.
Volta Volare’s aspiration are both literally and figuratively sky high, but its technological path, and perhaps other ideals as well, are not far off from those of the Chevy Volt.