Maeve Redesigns Hybrid-Electric Regional To Replace RJs

Dutch startup Maeve Aerospace has redesigned its planned hybrid-electric regional aircraft to target the replacement of today’s regional jets beginning around the middle of the next decade.

The rebranded Maeve Jet Series 500 (MJ500) is a 76-100-passenger aircraft with five-abreast seating, low-set swept wing and aft-mounted open rotor/stator engines. The previous M80 design was an 80-seater with two propellers mounted on a high wing.

When configured as a 76-seater to comply with U.S. pilot scope clause limits, the MJ500 is designed to fly 1,200 nm (1,380 mi.), cruising at Mach 0.75 and 35,000 ft. while burning 30% to 40% less fuel than the regional jets (RJ) it is designed to replace. Operating cost is reduced by about 20%.

Feedback from prospective customers led Maeve to redesign its planned hybrid-electric aircraft to more closely match the characteristics of regional jets. The startup has been assisted by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries RJ Aviation (MHIRJ), which acquired the legacy CRJ program from Bombardier in 2019 and is contracted by Maeve to provide engineering and marketing services.

This is the third redesign for Maeve, which was founded in September 2020 to develop a 44-seat all-electric regional airliner with a range up to 300 nm. In December 2023, the startup switched to a hybrid-electric 80-seater, and in July 2024 Pratt & Whitney Canada joined the program to supply the powertrain.

“Optimization of the aircraft configuration is driven by customer feedback,” says Maeve CTO Martin Nüsseler, explaining the latest design changes. “We are not changing the proposition of a high-economic-value regional aircraft, but we received two key pieces of feedback.”

One concerned internal noise and the customer perception that the traveling public does not want to see propellers next to the cabin. The second concerned aircraft productivity and the need to match the cruise speed of today’s RJs. Together they necessitated a change in propulsion architecture.

Maeve needed to replace the M80’s propellers with something smaller in diameter to enable rear-fuselage mounting to remove noise from the cabin. The company is now planning to use a propulsor combining an unducted rotor with a stationary rotor swirl recovery system, similar to the open fan being developed by CFM International under the RISE program.

Rear mounting the engines provided other opportunities to improve the aircraft configuration, including changing from a high wing to a swept low wing. “Typically, the rear engine configuration gives you a weight challenge because you have a longer pylon. We compensate for this with the clean wing,” Nüsseler says.

The MJ500 has a parallel hybrid configuration, with both an advanced thermal engine and an electric motor driving into the propulsor gearbox. The aircraft is optimized for performance at altitude. “This is why we are flying at flight level 350 like a jet,” Nüsseler says. The electric motor is used to boost power for takeoff if required by field performance.

Maeve took the opportunity of the redesign to rethink the cabin. “There was clear feedback to future-proof the platform for the coming decades. This needs a five-abreast cabin because four-abreast is too squeezed,” Nüsseler says. “Today, everybody is coming into the cabin with a trolley, and only a five-abreast cabin with the same size bins provides room to reduce the increasing lead times for boarding.”

Key to the redesign was producing a single aircraft that can seat 76 in a three-class configuration, 90 in two-class and 100 in single-class. “The aircraft will be able to achieve the weights required by U.S. scope clauses,” says Ross Mitchell, MHIRJ senior vice president for strategy and business development. “It will be able to make 76 seats and 86,000 lb. We also believe the aircraft we're designing will be able to meet 50 seats and 65,000 lb., the weight limit for small regional jets with a CRJ550-type interior.”

The main market Maeve is targeting is replacing the U.S. fleet of scope-compliant Bombardier CRJ550s, 700s and 900s as well as Embraer ERJs and E175-E1s. “With the 76-seat configuration, we can fly 1,200-1,500 nm. For the 100-seater, it's more like 900 nm. We are not targeting 2,500-nm range, because we think it's not necessary. The design target is around 1,000-nm range, which gives us a lighter aircraft.”

Maeve and Montreal-based MHIRJ are in the concept design phase, which is planned to be complete by early next year. “We will then start the preliminary design phase. PDR [preliminary design review] will be from the end of 2026 to mid-2027. We will fly at the end of 2029. Entry into service is targeted for end of 2032, beginning of 2033,” Nüsseler says.

As a startup, Maeve does not expect to take the MJ500 to production on its own, but to assemble a consortium of industry partners. “It is important to demonstrate the customer acceptance and concept robustness, that we have a business case. The plan is to take the aircraft to PDR [preliminary design review], then someone takes over,” he says. Supported by initial investors, Maeve plans to tap public grants and loans to reach PDR.