VoltAero unveils redesigned electric-hybrid aircraft at Paris Air Show
By Ian Molyneaux
French start-up VoltAero has unveiled a redesigned Cassio 330 electric-hybrid aircraft at Paris Air Show 2025, after working with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) airworthiness certification agency.
On June 15, 2025, the company said, “multiple factors led to this evolution” with a decision to “decrease complexity” in its ambitions for certification and “aligning its overall design in compliance with EASA’s latest CS.23 certification specifications for normal category planes”.
The Cassio 330’s original parallel-hybrid configuration incorporated an in-line combination of an electrical motor and thermal engine to drive a single propeller.
As part of the redesign, a “pusher” electric motor is installed on each side of the aft fuselage, and a thermal engine inside the aircraft serves as a range extender by recharging the onboard batteries.
Another visible difference for the Cassio 330’s production configuration is VoltAero’s adoption of a T-tail instead of the original design’s twin booms that supported a high-set horizontal tail.
This change eliminates the potential of damage to the twin booms in the event of a propeller blade failure.
The developer said: “The new configuration has a fully redundant architecture for operational safety. This begins with the two aft-fuselage-mounted Safran ENGINeUS smart electric motors, placing the Cassio 330 in the multi-engine aircraft category and opening its potential use in commercial air transport operations.”
The Cassio 330’s interior layout remains unchanged, accommodating the pilot and up to five passengers and retains the modularity for passenger transportation, cargo operations, and medical evacuation/air ambulance missions.
“As we take another step toward the Cassio 330’s production, our strategy remains unchanged: using safe and efficient electric-hybrid propulsion and power technologies that are realistically available today, applying them to a conventional takeoff/landing aircraft for sustainable regional transportation using existing airport infrastructure,” said Jean Botti, VoltAero’s CEO & Chief Technology Officer, during the unveiling event at Le Bourget Airport (LBG) ahead of the Paris Air Show.
VoltAero’s exhibit at the Paris Air Show features a full-scale mockup of the Cassio 330 production configuration.
