The Australian government has awarded Dovetail Electric Aviation a A$3 million ($2.1 million) grant to advance its plans to convert turboprop aircraft such as the Cessna Caravan, the DHC Twin Otter, the Beechcraft King Air, and the Casa C212 to electric propulsion. The grant was one of 19 projects for which the country’s Industry and Science Department this week announced a total of A$44 million in funding through its Cooperative Research Centres Projects (CRC-P) program.
The award marks a further boost to the start-up’s plans to market electric regional airliners following the December 2022 announcement that Spanish airlines Air Nostrum and Volotea had acquired a minority stake in Dovetail’s European sister company, Dante Aeronautical. The two ventures recently launched a joint Series A funding round to fulfill their ambitions to start deliveries of converted aircraft in 2025. Dovetail has also received an investment from Australian regional airline Rex, which has shown interest in converting its fleet to electric power with the goal of cutting operating costs by 40 percent.
